


thinking of you (sweet surrender)

by sunsetmoons



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Child Abuse, Pining, Porn With Plot, Webcam/Video Chat Sex, camboy au, technically porn IS the plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:01:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28723266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetmoons/pseuds/sunsetmoons
Summary: Falling hard for a camboy was trouble enough, but things only get more complicated when Ronan realizes his idealized fantasy is someone he knows for real.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 497
Kudos: 525





	1. Chapter 1

Ronan found him by accident, the first time.

Late fall. Twilight. Gansey was at college in Cambridge, Declan at Georgetown, Matthew at NYU. Ronan was at the Barns, because what else was there? There was nowhere else for him. There was nowhere he wanted to be.

He wasn’t lonely. What he felt went beyond loneliness, encompassing everything from boredom to tiredness to grief. He hungered for stimulation, anything that could take his mind off the heavy silence. That was the problem with living out in the country — silence had a presence. Houses creaked and groaned. Wildlife yipped and howled and whined. Thoughts echoed off the walls and rebounded right back at him. Ronan was halfway to losing his damn mind.

Booze and drag racing and picking fights with Kavinsky and his goons had all done the trick, once upon a time, but Ronan had kicked those habits. Was trying to, at least. He’d seen where that path had led K and he wanted no part of that. His life wasn’t worth much, but it could still amount to something.

What else was there? Ronan scrolled through Netflix, picked a film at random. Tried to focus through all the overblown action and heavy exposition. His leg twitched.

He was all restless energy. This wouldn’t do. He needed something more, to take the edge off. Something that would help him sleep easy.

On his TV screen, the rough-edged hero pushed his catch of the hour up against the wall, lips meeting as hands roamed curves. And there was an idea, sleazy as it might be.

Phone in his hands, Ronan searched up Pornhub. He felt weird about it, but only slightly. Everyone jacked off to porn from from time to time. _Gansey_ probably jacked off to porn from time to time, although Ronan really didn’t want to think about the specifics.

It was fine, normal. He had a dick, why not use it?

The homepage was filled with images of women, bent over, spread eagled, kneeling. Ronan grimaced and found the gay section.

That was better, but only by a margin. Ronan scrolled past dull-eyed pornstars and hairless twinks and leather-clad bears in seedy basements, ignoring videos that were titled all sorts of demeaning bullshit. He was starting to get impatient, not to mention uncomfortable. His dick was half-hard in his pants but he couldn’t bring himself to click on anything. How did he know if these guys wanted to be filmed? How did he know if they were even into dudes at all or just doing it for the pay-cheque?

“You’re such a pussy, Lynch,” K would’ve said. “You think you’re any better than the rest of us ‘cause you’re the goddamn abstinence poster boy?”

K was a giant fucking asshole and there was no love lost there, but sometimes he had a point. Ronan was on a porn site, for fuck’s sake. Whatever claim he had at the moral high ground was lost. Buried. Whatever.

Still. He didn’t want to get off to just anything. He needed something specific. Something that _felt right_ …

Then Ronan saw him.

Kneeling on the bed in a faded Rolling Stones shirt, dick in his hand, plain white walls behind him. He was slim yet wiry, all summer tan skin and boyish hands. Ronan was mesmerized by his hands in particular: the awkward jut to the knuckles, the way his fingers stretched out, long and slim and fine-boned, as though searching for something. They looked almost elegant, wrapped around that pretty cock.

It was a filthy image. The attraction was instant.

Ronan barely hesitated before clicking on the thumbnail.

The video started. The guy came into view wearing nothing but his t-shirt and a pair of tight black briefs. Ronan watched, awed and senselessly turned on, as he ran his hand over the bulge there, carefully stroking himself through the flimsy fabric. He didn’t talk and he didn’t show his face, but his breathing picked up with each stroke, little quiet gasps that filled Ronan’s mind and sent blood rushing straight to his cock.

He palmed himself through his jeans. No good. He tugged them off and slid a hand inside his boxers. Better.

On screen, the guy stopped touching himself and pulled his hand away. There was a wet spot forming where his dick strained against his briefs, but Ronan’s eyes were drawn to the guy’s palm. He had a scar there, nothing notable, just a thin white line dragging underneath his thumb. A minor imperfection, proof of existence. Ronan wondered how he’d got it.

The guy teased at the wet spot with his index finger, tracing around it in circles, before slowly turning away from the camera and showing off his still-clothed ass. It curved nicely against the thin material, so nicely that Ronan’s mouth went dry.

 _Fuck_. He grasped himself with a rough hand.

The guy slipped his fingers beneath his waistband and slowly, teasingly tugged his boxers down. He was confident in his movements, like he’d done this plenty of times before. Ronan wondered how he’d got the practice — was it all from making videos? Or did he do this with other men, bring them home and put on a show, rile them up until they couldn’t stand just watching anymore, had to _touch_ —

Ronan shook the thoughts off. He was getting too lost in the fantasy. He had to focus. Watch.

Those gorgeous hands were kneading at his ass now, pulling and teasing and spreading himself open for the camera. He’d shaved down there but his arms and legs were still coated in a nice layer of hair and Ronan’s brain said, _yes, that_.

He watched, spellbound, as the man brought one of his long knuckled fingers down to his pink wet hole. Watched as one finger became too, as he built up a steady rhythm, as he wrapped his free hand around his cock.

And nowhe was getting into it, getting louder, those quiet gasps becoming breathy moans as he dropped face down onto the bed. _Fuck_ , he sounded good. _Fuck,_ he looked beautiful like this, all worked up on the sheets. _Fuck_ , Ronan wanted him.

He wanted that hand around his cock. He wanted to suck on those long fingers and watch the guy work himself open with Ronan’s spit. He wanted to hear those hitched breaths against his ear and see the desperation in his eyes and hold him as he came undone.

Ronan jerked himself off in time with the man’s fist, rough and desperate and _so close_ , so fucking close but he couldn’t, not yet, not until—

The man let out a choked off whine and then he was coming, thick pearly white against dark green sheets.

Ronan let go and followed.

Afterwards, as the haze of pleasure wore off, Ronan clicked on the username that had uploaded the video. They had over three-hundred uploads on their profile, a mix of solo stuff from various different camboys and hardcore BDSM that Ronan was decidedly not about.

Ronan frowned. Maybe the guy had a profile on here somewhere, but odds were likely the video had been stolen and uploaded without his permission.

The comments section on the video was an even bigger mess. For every respectful comment there was some sleazebag going on about dominating cocksluts. It made shame twist up in Ronan’s gut. He liked being gay, he was fine with being gay on most days, but shit like this was goddamn depressing. He didn’t want to be associated with assholes like that; he was only here because he was bored.

He trolled through all the comments, searching impatiently, until finally he found a name: Alex Wilde.

It was probably a dumb idea but Ronan reveled in dumb ideas. He followed the link to Alex’s private website and paid the subscription fee.

*

The second time wasn’t an accident. Neither was the third. Or the thirteenth.

Alex had over a year’s worth of videos on his website, all solo stuff, new content every Wednesday. He fucked himself with his fingers or with toys, jerked himself off, grinded against pillows until he came. The more time passed, the more creative he got: roleplay scenarios, different outfits, different toys.

One such video stood out for Ronan, so much so that just the _thought_ of it could get him going. It featured Alex in a mechanic’s jumpsuit giving a slow strip tease for the camera. There was no car to be seen but he’d improvised with the makeup, made it look like real grease. Ronan hadn’t even finished the video the first time; Alex’s skillful mouth sucking on those oil-stained fingers was all it took to get Ronan shooting his load.

Around the time of posting that video he’d also bought a better camera and switched from keeping his face out of frame to using a mask. Ronan couldn’t make out much beyond a nice smile, straight teeth and blondish-brown hair long enough to tug on, but he knew instinctively that Alex was his type. Not that Ronan really _had_ a type — options were limited out here in bumfuck nowhere — but hypothetically.

Alex was confident but never arrogant. Young, maybe Ronan’s age, but not naive. He looked ethereal under the webcam light but he held a toughness to him too. He was a study in contradictions, elegant yet rough and ready all at once, someone that could roll around with Ronan in the mud and then tidy up to charm the parents, too.

In an ideal world, where Ronan still had parents.

Whatever.

There were weekly live shows too. Those took place on Saturday nights, but you had to pay extra each time to get on the stream. Ronan didn’t think twice about paying. He had a shit ton of cash and he wasn’t spending it anytime soon. That would mean leaving the house.

On the live stream Alex didn’t just play for his audience, he spoke to them too. His voice was golden honey, all drawling long vowels that put Ronan in mind of iced tea on long porches and cicadas singing under southern skies. He was warm and courteous to a tee but Ronan couldn’t help but think of the wait staff at Declan’s favorite restaurant, nice and obliging like their lives depended on it, because maybe they did.

Knowing this didn’t break the illusion, though. If anything it made Ronan even more intrigued, left him wondering who Alex was when he wasn’t fucking himself on camera for a bunch of strange men. He always sounded happy enough, always encouraged viewers on the live stream to keep typing and tell him what they wanted to see, but it had to get tiring surely.

Or maybe not. Maybe Alex had superhuman fucking endurance. It wouldn’t be a surprise.

Ronan never commented, even as the weeks passed without him missing a single stream. He was better with actions than words, and besides, it wasn’t like Alex’s other subscribers were shy.

_That’s it, baby. Open yourself up wide for us._

_Yesss sink down on it nice and slow._

_Shove your fingers down your throat while you fuck yourself._

And Alex stared into the camera with a challenging glint in his eyes, breathlessness doing nothing to lessen his usual intensity, and said, “Yeah? I can do better than that,” before sucking a second toy down his throat.

Ronan sent another tip for that.

He still preferred Alex’s videos though, where it was just him and the camera and no leering men telling him what to do. Where Ronan could sink into the fantasy that this was a private show all for him.

It was fucked. He was so fucked up. He didn’t _know_ Alex. None of this was real.

But dreams and reality were hard to tell apart these days. The nights were getting longer and crueler. The Barns, once a refuge from the rest of the world, was starting to feel like Ronan’s prison. Alex was the only face Ronan could count on seeing week in week out, so what did it matter if maybe Ronan dreamt him? He was good company.

*

Late January, Ronan made an unprecedented decision to visit Gansey at Cambridge.

He’d been plenty of times since Gansey moved up here, of course, but he’d never stayed more than a couple nights. Truth be told, Ronan hated it. He wasn’t the Ivy League type. He didn’t belong in some college town among all the academics and yuppies.

Worse still, hanging around in Cambridge only served to remind Ronan that Gansey had a whole life up here now. He had his friends and his classmates and his professors and his favorite hang-out spots and cafes and fucking hipster coffee shops. He was still the same weird nerd he’d always been, still Ronan’s best (hell, only) friend, but life was changing at remarkable speed and it was impossible not to feel the ridge growing between them.

So usually Ronan kept these visits brief, a weekend at most. This time, though, he didn’t feel the usual pressure to leave. There was nothing to rush back for, nowhere else to be. Declan and Matthew had been and gone for Christmas and the Barns felt quieter in their absence. Lonelier. So it was nice, for once, to be among company.

It might even have been fun, if not for Adam Parrish.

“Jesus Mary _shitfuck_ , you bastard. Where’d you come from?”

Parrish didn’t dignify that with a response. He merely waved the key in his hand and kicked the apartment door shut behind him.

“Dick gave you a key?” Ronan sneered. “What’s next, quick trip to Vegas?”

“Didn’t the two of you used to live together back in high school?”

“That’s different.”

“Oh, rude _and_ hypocritical, the virtues never end.”

“I’ll tell you what’s rude,” Ronan said, “you barging in here without warning. I could’ve been walking around with my balls out for all you know.”

“At two in the afternoon?”

“Maybe I was jacking off.”

“So you’d jack off on Gansey’s bed sheets but I’m the friend who’s inappropriately close to him. Nice mental leap.” Parrish walked into the kitchen and Ronan, seeing nothing else for it, followed. “Anyway, you’d have known I was coming if you’d checked your phone. There’s no way Gansey didn’t message you to play nice.”

That did sound like very Gansey-like behaviour, but hell if Ronan was copping to that. He watched as Parrish set his messenger bag down on the dining table and slumped into a seat. He pulled out a couple of textbooks — all library copies — and a thick binder stuffed full of notes. A _crazy_ amount of notes. Jesus, is that all Parrish did with his free time?

He’d also brought his laptop along, and as he retrieved it from its bag Ronan’s eyes widened in appraisal. That was no cheap flimsy second hand shit; it was good tech, probably expensive. Not to Ronan, of course, but he got the sense that Parrish didn’t frequent thrift stores and rely on public transport just for the hell of it.

Gansey had once described him as ‘middle class’ but Ronan had his doubts. He’d seen the way Parrish sometimes paused when asked about his parents, like the topic was a source of great shame to him. It wasn’t noticeable unless you were looking, but Ronan was always looking. How else was he going to learn what Parrish’s deal was?

Parrish looked up then, as if drawn by Ronan’s thoughts. He had an interesting face — fine-boned and distinct, with blue eyes almost pretty enough to distract you from the shrewdness that lurked underneath. Very little got past Parrish. That made it dangerous to look, but Ronan had always reveled in recklessness.

“I’m sorry,” Parrish said, and he did not sound sorry at all. “Did you need something?”

Ronan scoffed and strolled over to the fridge. Parrish flipped open the laptop.

“Gansey’s psych tutorial doesn’t finish till four, by the way,” he said casually as he rummaged around. They needed groceries badly, but if Ronan suggested it then Gansey would start asking questions about how long he was planning to stay for, and no way was Ronan walking into that hellfire.

“I know that.”

“You don’t look like you know that.”

Parrish sighed. He flipped a page in his textbook. “I told him I’d get a headstart on our project.”

Right, the history project. Gansey had mentioned that once or twice. Ronan had tuned him out because there was only so much Harvard talk he could handle, especially where Adam Parrish was concerned.

Here was the problem with Adam Parrish: he’d gone from being merely a blip on the radar to the center of Gansey’s world in the blink of an eye. There’d been car trouble, which was standard fair when it came to Gansey’s relic of a Camaro. Parrish had been there, got him back on the road, and the rest was history. Now every conversation circled back to Parrish. _Adam Parrish, wunderkind!_ _Adam Parrish, friend of cars everywhere! Adam Parrish, subject of my bi awakening!_

Okay, that last one hadn’t happened yet, but it was only a matter of time. The dude was obsessed.

Did Ronan hate Parrish? Not in the slightest. Did he resent Parrish? No shit. He was the shiny new prototype here to replace Ronan’s defective ass. It was up to Ronan to keep an eye on him and figure out what the hell his deal was; there had to be some malfunction buried in there somewhere.

Ronan made himself some grilled cheese and then swanned off back to the living room. He lay around on the couch channel-hopping for as long as he could stand to, before boredom and restlessness gripped him.

Parrish was still typing away at the table when Ronan wandered back into the kitchen. He didn’t look up as Ronan dumped his plate in the dishwasher, not even as Ronan slammed some cupboards and turned the tap on full blast. Damn, he was good. It was infuriating.

“Aren’t you bored as shit yet?” Ronan said. “You’ve been at it all night.”

“I’ve been at it an hour.”

“Exactly. Take a break.”

Parrish finally turned around this time. He didn’t look any more annoyed than usual but it was hard to tell. He was always dour-faced and detached, like some tragic little Victorian orphan kid who’d watched mommy and daddy fade away with consumption. He could be on the verge of a spree killing and you wouldn’t sense the change until the bullets started firing.

“I’m not slacking off just because you don’t know how to entertain yourself,” Parrish said. Ronan rolled his eyes.

“Cannot slack off. System does not compute. Must work until death,” Ronan said in a robotic monotone impression.

“That sounds nothing like me.”

“Error. Error. System failure. Shutting down. Goodbye.”

Parrish’s mouth tugged at the corners. Not quite a smile, but getting warmer.

“I need to finish this,” he said, but he sounded less confident than before.

“Suit yourself. If you need me, I’ll be doing donuts in the parking lot.”

Parrish didn’t move but Ronan didn’t expect him to. He left him to it and went outside.

The parking lot was empty — Gansey’s neighbors probably all worked cosy nine to fives — which suited Ronan nicely. He climbed into the BMW and relaxed. He always felt better behind the wheel, problems big and small taking a backseat as his world narrowed down to gear shift, accelerator and the road ahead. It was his comfort zone. It was freedom. It was fun.

It was Dad’s car, and Ronan was his father’s son in more ways than one could count.

Ronan started the engine and turned his music on. Heavy bass line thumped from the stereo. This was what he lived for, blood-pumping pulse-racing pure energy. He was king in this car and it didn’t matter what anyone had to say about him. Ronan Lynch was not a loser so long as the dnb kept playing.

He briefly wondered what Alex would think of this, but that was a dangerous thought to entertain. He didn’t know Alex from Adam.

Speaking of Adam, there he was: plastered against the back wall of the apartment lot, hands in his pockets, watching.

Ronan rolled down the window and yelled, “You in or what, man?”

He stepped forward.

“Have you done this before?” Adam asked once he’d clicked on the seatbelt. Ronan barked out a laugh. Adam’s eyes narrowed. “That wasn’t an answer.”

“Chill the fuck out, would you? I know what I’m doing.”

“Know as in you’ve done it before or you saw it in a movie? ‘Cause there’s a difference.”

“I’m a pro at this. Watch and learn.”

There was a lamp post right in the center of the lot. Perfect. Ronan shifted into first gear and inched down on the accelerator. They took off slow, gradually gaining speed, before Ronan turned the wheel and hit the clutch. The car skidded in a half moon and Adam groaned, “Fuck!” and then Ronan revved and they started to spin.

They drifted around the pole once, twice, again, again, tires burning, asphalt smoking around them, both of them yelling in unison over the pulsing bass before Ronan finally hit the brakes. Adam’s hand was clutched around the Jesus handle tight enough his knuckles had gone white but he was smiling, _grinning_ , eyes lit up with excitement. He looked younger, wilder, less like the put-together stuck-up asshole Ronan had him labeled as in his head.

Like someone wantable.

Ronan smacked his hand against the wheel. Said, “Your turn.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I can’t drive stick.”

This gave Ronan pause. “What do you mean you can’t drive stick? You’re the fucking car guy.”

Wrong thing to say, apparently. The smile fell and the lights went off and Adam became Parrish quicker than Ronan could process.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’ve brought the Pig back to life enough times you could call yourself a necromancer,” Ronan said. “How can you know shit about cars and not know how to drive stick?”

Parrish looked caught between conflicting impulses — to take offense or not to take offense. Ronan couldn’t for the life of him figure out what he’d done wrong. He watched and waited for Parrish to get his shit together.

“I used to work with cars a lot, growing up,” he said. This did not explain where the overreaction stemmed from, which probably meant Ronan was in the clear. “Picked up some tricks here and there. But my dad only had an automatic.”

“I’ll teach you,” Ronan offered.

“It’s fine.”

“Don’t give me that. You’ll pick it up in no time, come on.”

Adam regarded Ronan with wary eyes. Ronan looked back with nothing to hide.

“I could pay you,” Adam said, and Ronan tried his very hardest not to laugh.

“All right, you do that. I’ll stick it in my college fund.”

“Doesn’t have to be cash. I can do something else for you. A favour.”

Ronan’s mind went to the filthiest place possible. There was no way…that wasn’t what—

He was suddenly all too aware of the weight of Adam’s presence in the car, the intensity of his stare, just how little space there was between them. His hand on the gear stick, Adam’s in his lap, so easy to reach over and _touch_ —

But it wasn’t Adam’s voice he heard asking what he wanted. It was Alex’s.

Fuck.

“Gansey said you live on a farm,” Adam said, cutting through the illusion. “I could come down with him during spring break, give you a hand.”

Right. That was more reasonable.

“The fuck do you think this is, Harvard Business School?” Ronan said. “We’re not exchanging goods and services, man. I’m not gonna cut you a trade deal.”

And that shattered the illusion entirely. Adam’s shoulders hunched up in defense mode and his standard remote mask fell back over his face. Whatever fragile peace they’d formed was broken.

“I told you, I don’t need you to teach me anything,” he said, and opened the passenger door. “But thanks for the offer.”

Ronan sat there and seethed until the sun went down and he was sure Gansey would be home.

Screw Adam Parrish. Ronan didn’t want to help him, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know this au is kind of trashy but the idea wouldn't leave me alone. I promise there'll be more to it than the porn if you stick around!! 
> 
> Also I'm happy to add more tags if you need me to! I've decided to leave out all the sex tags unless it's something that I feel warrants an extra warning, like kink stuff, but anything else you guys can think of just let me know x


	2. Chapter 2

When anyone asked, Adam told them he worked at the college library.

This was not a lie — he could be found behind the help desk every Sunday without fail, and occasionally on weeknights too. It was a half-truth though, a careful lie by omission. The real answer was long and messy and shameful, and no one had time for that.

Here was how it had started: a dorm party at the beginning of freshmen year, Adam tagging along with his roommate, Marcus, who was still in that awkward phase of clinging onto Adam until he found a social circle of his own.

Adam didn’t like parties. Too much chaos, too many drunken bodies with too little self-control. He felt uncomfortable among rowdy crowds, keenly aware of all the dangers that excess booze consumption posed to innocent bystanders. He trusted himself to keep out of trouble but he didn’t trust other people. Other people had a way of disappointing.

The music didn’t help. Loud background noises were difficult for Adam to filter out — just one of many side effects of single-sided deafness. This made keeping up with conversations an exercise in endurance, where the prize was temporary social approval and the costs were mild disorientation and headaches that stayed with him long after the party died down.

 _One day, one day_ , Adam always told himself. When he was settled and had the money, he’d look into treatment options. Hearing aids, implants, surgery if it came down to it. He wouldn’t let this single setback define him.

 _One day._ That was a long way off though. Hospital bills had thrown him into debt. Seven years of college would keep him buried there. Student grants could only stretch so far when Adam was already starting in the red.

He’d worked three jobs in order to claw his way through high school. That method wouldn’t work at Harvard, though. He was already struggling to keep on top of the workload, and he knew things would only get worse as the semester went on and the garage he’d started at began offering better hours.

But what else was there?

“—mean it, Jules, I’m gonna flunk out.”

“God, you’re so dramatic. You’ll be fine.”

“You don’t get it. I’ve been like, having panic attacks. I’ve got shakes and shit. Look at my hand.”

Adam had looked even though he wasn’t being addressed. He knew the boy, Brian, from his sociology tutorial; there was an opportunity here, however improbable, of making a friend.

“Have you been drinking those Monster cans again?”

“What? No! No. It’s stress, you know? I keep thinking, like, if it’s this bad right now, what’s it gonna be like next semester? I can’t do four years like this. And I’m supposed to be pre-med, right? So it’s fucked. I’m fucked. And you know my dad will like, cut me off if I change majors.”

“You’ll be fine. You’re overthinking it.”

“What else am I meant to think about?”

The look on Jules’ face said she didn’t care, this was above her pay grade. “Well, if you flunk out, you can always pull a Madison.”

“Fuck off.”

“I mean it. Have you seen her Instagram? She’s really making bank now.”

“By being a skank.”

“It’s called _camming_ and she says it’s empowering.”

“No shit she said that. That’s the skank tagline.”

“Yeah, well, she makes 6K a month.”

Adam’s jaw would’ve dropped if he had less self-restraint. He felt all at once distant from this conversation, this room, this golden campus. Six grand a month was more money than he could wrap his head around, and what did it matter where it came from? Desperate people turned to desperate solutions, and who at this party had a right to judge? Who at this party had ever been there, at the bottom? Where a good day meant eating one square meal and a bad one meant forgoing groceries for rent.

With that kind of money, Adam could get his life together. Even a _fraction_ of that money would allow him to get his life together. It was mouth-watering just to think about.

Alluring.

“That’s nothing,” said Brian, and Adam’s mood soured. “I think our house cleaners make more than that.”

Adam never did make friends with Brian that night, but he did make something better: the beginnings of a plan.

Desperate people turned to desperate solutions, and all.

*

Saturday nights were livestream nights, which meant being set up and ready to go at eight on the dot. Going out drinking was not an option.

This had always suited Adam fine. Saturdays had been his best shot at getting the room to himself back when he’d still lived in the dorms. It didn’t much matter when he filmed now that he had his own apartment, but subscribers liked reliability and it wasn’t like Adam had anything better to do on weekends, anyway. Before Gansey, Adam had always been alone.

 _Before Gansey_. This was how Adam had come to marking time lately. Everything before Gansey was muted, static, washed out pictures with no frames. These eras of Adam’s life were barely worth preserving, to be glossed over in a single chapter titled ‘PROLOGUE.’ Everything remarkable belonged in the After Gansey years, and that was why Adam had to keep the two sides separate. He couldn’t allow his roots to tarnish this friendship before it really got off the ground. He couldn’t allow Gansey to find out where he came from, or what he’d done to ensure he’d never have to go back.

He couldn’t ruin this. He’d never forgive himself if he ruined this.

That was why, when Gansey asked Adam over to his apartment (upscale, fancy, a far cry from the dumpy little place Adam was living in) on the pretext of working on their history project, Adam agreed even though he knew he couldn’t stay long. Adam wasn’t practiced at having friends, but he understood making time for them was a basic requirement.

He was paying the price now, though.

“Are you really sure you can’t stay?” Gansey asked, as Adam hurriedly grabbed his coat from the rack. “I’ve gone overboard with the pasta again. It’d be a shame to waste it.”

“Wrap it up and put it in the fridge. It’ll keep for a few days.”

Gansey made a face that conveyed how little he thought of that idea. He was very conscious of his place in the world, but sometimes his privileged upbringing still betrayed him.

“What about Lynch?” Adam suggested. “I’m sure he’ll eat some.”

“He left this morning, didn’t I tell you? He had to get back to the farm.”

Adam shrugged. If Gansey had said anything, Adam hadn’t been listening.

He was still reeling from yesterday’s argument with Ronan. It had been his own fault — he’d overreacted big time. Blown off the handle. He couldn’t help it though; there was just something about that sneering look on Ronan’s face when he’d spat out “trade deal” that had boiled Adam’s blood. He’d felt shamed, exposed, like Ronan was looking right through him and seeing him for the filth he was.

But what did Adam have to feel ashamed for? Making trades was what life was about. Every human interaction boiled down to a transaction. You gave to receive, whether it be money or love or a roof over your head.

Adam understood these implicit rules and had always made sure to give his due, lest anyone think he owed them one. His parents could be faulted for many things but they’d known how the world worked, at least, and they’d taught him accordingly.

Who was Ronan to make Adam feel bad about that? What did he know about anything?

“Adam?”

Adam looked up then, realized Gansey was still talking. “Sorry?”

“I said, if you wait until after dinner I’ll give you a ride home.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

The furrow between Gansey’s brow said it _wasn’t_ fine and he _was_ going to worry about it.

“Nonsense!” he said. “You know the buses are always unreliable at this time of night.”

“Have you ever been on a bus before?”

As Gansey stammered out his response, Adam buttoned up his coat. He didn’t mind taking rides from Gansey but it was already six and he couldn’t risk staying any longer. Work called, profane as it may be.

“You’re working tomorrow, right? At the library?” Gansey called out before Adam could get out the door. “I’ll stop by with coffee.”

For a moment Adam was speechless. It was such a small thing, the coffee clearly an excuse to hang out again, but Adam was struck by the kindness of it. This care for other people had originally appeared to Adam to be incongruous with a man of Gansey’s stature, but he’d soon realized that it was, in fact, at the core of his personality.

That didn’t mean it had stopped surprising Adam.

He schooled his features into a warm smile and said, “That’d be nice.” Gansey’s face brightened.

How privileged Adam was to have lucked into this friendship. How frightening it was to imagine it blowing up in his face.

*

 _Greywaren_ was back for tonight’s livestream, and Adam was relieved. He worried he’d lost him when he didn’t show last week.

Greywaren was a newer subscriber, one that said nothing but tipped exceptionally well. He’d been showing up to the livestreams reliably for a few months now, until last weekend when he’d disappeared with no warning.

It was probably nothing. He’d probably been busy with his personal life. It always worried Adam when a loyal subscriber disappeared, though. There were no guarantees he’d be able to win those lost earnings back.

As the chat got busier, Adam settled in and got the introductions out of the way. Performing as Alex was instinctual now, a practiced skill he’d been honing for nearly two years. _Talking_ was the hard part, but Adam had made his peace with it as a necessary evil of the job. Audiences looked for a personality, not just a nice body. They wanted to feel like they were interacting with a real person and not just a glorified sex object. Less sleazy that way, Adam supposed.

So Adam gritted his teeth and bore it with necessary enthusiasm. He leaned into his roots, spoke in the accent he’d done his very best to scrub in real life, really leaned into the charming country boy act. Pretending to care about the lives of the men filling his wallet was not easy but Adam could admit there were some aspects of the character he enjoyed. He liked the way it felt to reinvent himself, to cast off everything that made him Adam Parrish and lose himself in the role of someone else.

When Adam was Alex, his everyday problems disappeared. Everything Adam disliked about himself, everything he was ashamed of, that all became irrelevant. He was unknowable to these men. He was Alex and Alex was whatever they wanted him to be.

Tonight they wanted him to get on his knees and wrap his lips around one of his toys. That he could do.

Adam adjusted the external webcam, so it was facing the wall where he’d attached his dildo. It wasn’t his biggest or most exciting but it was realistically shaped and a decent length to get things started. He gave the toy a few strokes, eyes on the camera the whole time, before slowly leaning in.

He took his time kissing the head, licking his way down to the base and back, teasing things out for as long as he could. Rushing his shows was counterproductive; subscribers didn’t want quick and easy porn, they wanted the whole immersive experience. The illusion of intimacy.

Adam pulled back. Licked his tongue around the head. Held it there against his bottom lip. His laptop pinged with the familiar sound he had grown to appreciate: someone had sent a tip.

He met the camera’s eye before sinking down on the toy.

It didn’t do much for him. The silicon felt strange and intrusive in his mouth. Better to imagine someone hovering over him, giving him the real thing. One hand at the back of his head, running through his hair. Another cradling his jaw, guiding him back and forth. Adam pictured a thumb grazing his open lips, slipping in alongside the head of that cock, and felt his own dick stir in his pants.

He pulled away, took a breath. More tips came through. Adam leaned across the bed and grabbed the laptop. The chat was active with the usual names he’d come to expect, all spouting off a mixture of dirty talk and demands. He’d learned by now to tune out the comments that made him uncomfortable, and so his eyes glazed over at every degrading insult or infantilizing petname. He scrolled up. He wanted to see who’d tipped; those usually came with special requests.

No luck though: the first one came from Greywaren and he still wasn’t asking for anything. Maybe Adam just had to up his game.

He crawled back over to the wall and took the toy between his lips again, this time going all the way down. That was always a popular move.

Adam held himself there, hands clenched on his thighs, breathing carefully through his nose. He tried again to picture something more exciting, something _real._ Heavy press of hands on his head, scent of sex thick and overwhelming, groans and choked off gasps from above that told him he was doing a good job.

Adam could see him now: tough, powerful, arrogant tilt to his mouth, like those car-ad models Adam had lusted over back in high school. Less put together though, less groomed. Not like some guy he’d see walking the halls at Harvard but rougher around the edges, wilder, more like —

_Ronan._

Shit.

He was getting hard to the thought of Ronan Lynch.

Adam pulled back, remembering at the last second to make eye contact with the camera. He knew he looked a mess, could feel the saliva collecting on his chin and the tears in his eyes. He licked up the mess on the dildo as if it were a real dick and then traced his fingers along his spit-slick swollen lips.

The image of Ronan coming apart up above him was still branded in Adam’s mind. He tried to shake it off.

When he checked the chat it was ablaze with comments.

_Shit baby can’t believe you swallowed the whole thing_

_Need a real cock don’t you boy? Look at you, so hungry for it._

_Fuuuuuck alex that was so good. You should turn around and ride it next_

_^^seconding that ;)_

Adam forced a smile, that combo of knowing confidence and charisma that was all Alex. “Y’all are generous tonight,” he said. “Who else wants to see me ride this cock?”

The chat went wild.

Adam read their requests and followed through on the most popular ones. He felt weirdly off-kilter though, less in the moment and more in his head. That was something he always tried to avoid while working but he couldn’t help it tonight. The thought of Ronan had thrown him off his game, brought a sense of reality back to the room, crumbled some of the walls that kept himself and Alex separate.

Thinking about Ronan was unprofessional, not to mention wrong. Ronan barely tolerated Adam as it was. He certainly wouldn’t tolerate Adam if he saw him like this, debasing himself for money.

Desperate people turned to desperate solutions and neither Ronan nor Gansey would ever understand that. They’d never had to. Adam hated to think what they’d say if they knew.

Afterwards, when Adam had finished and the last of the tips were rolling in, he scrolled through the chat. Greywaren still hadn’t said anything, even though he’d out-donated all of Adam’s top patrons. That was strange, not to mention unsettling. Nobody paid this much without expecting something in return. It didn’t sit right with Adam having debts unpaid, favors owed.

Greywaren hadn’t left the chatroom yet. Adam considered his options. Ignoring his generosity could breed resentment and make Greywaren feel unvalued enough to unsubscribe. Giving him a shout-out in the stream could be equally as disastrous; Adam knew from past experience that not everyone responded well to having the spotlight shone on them, at least not in an environment like this.

There was another option though, and now was the perfect time to take it. Adam double-clicked on the username and sent off a quick PM.

 ** **magicianalex:**** _when I said yall were generous tonight, I really meant you_

He gave it a few minutes before accepting there would be no response and switching the camera off. But then, just as Adam went to log out, the chat button lit up.

 ****greywaren:** ** _sup_

Not exactly what Adam was expecting, but it was something. Alex could work with that.

 ****magicianalex:** ** _you’ve put me in a real tight spot here, yknow. I can’t be accepting all these tips if you won’t let me work for them_

 ** **greywaren:**** _what_

Okay, so maybe Greywaren wasn’t big on texting. That didn’t mean there wasn’t something he wanted. Everyone wanted something from Alex. That was the point of the job.

 ** **magicianalex:**** _I wanna know if there’s something special I can do for you next week, something you’d really like to see. As a thank you for the generosity_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _most people tell me what they want in the chat but you’re not like anyone else, are you? Are you shy?_

Adam stretched out on the bed and yawned. He was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to soak in a hot shower before crawling into bed. Hopefully Greywaren would get the idea and respond. Adam didn’t have the energy to keep up the flirty persona all night.

Five minutes later, new messages appeared:

 ** **greywaren:**** _not shy_

 ** **greywaren:**** _just shit with words_

 ** **greywaren:**** _those other guys are shitbags anyway_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _how so?_

 ****greywaren:** ** _the way they talk_

 ****greywaren:** ** _I know they’re paying you man but doesn’t it piss you off? They talk at you like you’re a doll_

Adam rolled his eyes. Now he understood why Greywaren never contributed to the chat: he was rude as hell and hypocritical to boot. Did he really think he was better than these other men because he kept his horny thoughts to himself? He was still getting off to what Alex did, enjoying it, probably thinking the same things as everybody else. It was delusion to assume the moral high ground.

Adam couldn’t say that though. It wasn’t how Alex would respond. He considered the situation, how best to turn things around on Greywaren without provoking animosity.

 ****magicianalex:** ** _so you didn’t like the show?_

 ****greywaren:** ** _didn’t say that_

Adam scoffed. That was more like it.

 ****magicianalex:** ** _gtg but have a think about what you wanna see and get back to me, ok?_

 ****greywaren:** ** _just do what you want. I didn’t send those tips because I wanted something back_

Frustration boiled up in Adam’s chest. It was like yesterday’s argument with Ronan all over again, only worse. How could Greywaren not understand that the whole nature of the cam business was transactional?

 ** **magicianalex:**** _consider it a treat then. There must be something I can do for you._

He gave it five minutes before accepting defeat. It would be fine. He could live with the mild discomfort so long as Greywaren still showed up each weekend. That was what mattered.

But then the chat pinged again.

 ****greywaren:** ** _I liked the jumpsuit. Looked like the real thing_

It took Adam a minute to place what he was referring to. The mechanic’s uniform. He’d worn it in a video he made a while back. It looked like the real thing because it _was_ the real thing, but of course nobody made that connection. Mechanic to cam boy wasn’t a common career progression route, from what he’d heard. Mechanic to cam boy to lawyer potentially made Adam a unicorn.

 ** **magicianalex:**** _sexy mechanics do it for you?_

 ** **greywaren:**** _and sexy cars. I’m a simple guy_

Adam smiled despite himself. Him and Greywaren had one thing in common, at least.

 ****magicianalex:** ** _I’ll keep that in mind_

He logged off then. Showered. Scrubbed his body and mind of the hours before.

The financial benefits of camming weighed out all the cons, but that didn’t mean Adam was proud to be doing it. It was a stepping stone from nothing to something, an era of his life he’d prefer to relegate to a footnote in his metaphorical biography.

Perhaps most troubling of all was what he knew it said about himself to have considered this path in the first place. After all, if Alex was whatever men wanted him to be, Adam was whatever it took to get ahead. This wasn’t a truth he enjoyed being confronted with.

 _One day, one day._ Maybe then, once all the other chips had fallen into place, Adam would feel like he was enough as he was. Like he was worth knowing.


	3. Chapter 3

_I’ll keep that in mind_ turned out to be a promise. When Ronan checked Alex’s website on Wednesday night, the thumbnail for his newest video showed him dressed once again in the mechanic’s jumpsuit.

Ronan didn’t hesitate to click the link.

The following week’s addition was even better: this one featured Alex in the backseat of an actual car. Ronan watched, entranced by every sudden gasp, every desperate rock of hips, the way Alex lost it completely at the end and started moaning into the crook of his elbow. It couldn’t have been comfortable — he must’ve been cramped as hell back there with how tall he was — but you wouldn’t guess that from the enraptured look on his face as he lay there in the afterglow, sweaty and spent.

It was an obscene image.

It was holy.

Ronan shut his eyes and prayed.

Better still were the messages. He’d been so sure that that first Saturday was a one-off, Alex’s filthy play on customer service, but the following week cemented the pattern. When the chat button flashed again after the livestream, Ronan was two parts relieved to one part fucking terrified.

How did he go about talking to Alex after jerking off to him? It struck Ronan as inherently wrong that the latter had come before the former, like he’d gotten the steps to this dance all out of order. This wasn’t how he liked to approach his relationships. He couldn’t be less interested in quick and dirty hook-ups, no strings attached. Wasn’t his style. Didn’t fulfill him.

But this _wasn’t_ a relationship and they _weren’t_ hooking up. So probably those rules shouldn’t apply.

 ****magicianalex:** ** _enjoy the show?_

 ** **greywaren:**** _is it good business practice to play favorites like this?_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _ha! Very modest I see_

 ** **greywaren:**** _just calling it how I see it_

 ** **magicianalex:**** _well, everyone else tells me what they think. They don’t hold out on me the way you do_

 ** **magicianalex:**** _are you like this in real life too? Do you make all your dates work for it?_

 ** **greywaren:**** _jesus fuck_

 ** **magicianalex**** : _sorry, I’m just messing w you_

 ** **greywaren:**** _yknow it’s weird as shit when you do that_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _do_ _what?_

 ****greywaren:** ** _that weird flirty thing_

 ** **magicianalex:**** _weird flirty thing?_

 ****greywaren:** ** _that’s not how you really talk is it? cos that shit makes me feel like I’m on the line with a fucking phone sex operator_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _that’s my day job_

Alex was a smartass, apparently.

This was not a turn off.

 ** **greywaren:**** _just be me real w me a sec. Tell me one honest thing about you_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _like what?_

 ****greywaren:** ** _whatever you want_

 ** **magicianalex:**** _ok_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _wow_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _I really can’t think of anything. You’re putting me on the spot here_

 ****greywaren:** ** _doesn’t have to be complicated man. Just tell me your favorite color or some shit_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _ok…green_

 ****greywaren:** ** _green?_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _like plant green. Forest green_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _I grew up in this shitty rural town, nearest city was an hour’s drive, and everywhere you looked was trees, just miles and miles of trees. Could drive you crazy but I always thought it was nice_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _sometimes I’d ride my bike out there into the woods and sit for hours enjoying the quiet. I miss it sometimes. I got so many plants in my apartment but it’s not the same_

Ronan knew instinctively that this was not a performance or another piece of the country boy persona. This was Alex at his most authentic, Alex at his most real.

And Ronan’s whole body buzzed with adrenaline, the same way it did after a good race. He thrilled at prying out this sacred piece of truth, at temporarily dislodging the mask. More than that though, he thrilled at finding some common ground.

 ** **magicianalex:**** _and looks like I’ve scared you off_

 ****greywaren:** ** _no I get it_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _you sure you’re not just saying that to make me feel better?_

 ****greywaren:** ** _I don’t do bullshit_

 ****greywaren:** ** _I live in a place like that too. Fucking middle of nowhere looking glass never never land._

 ****greywaren:** ** _It’s good. Peaceful_

 ****greywaren:** ** _sometimes too peaceful. All that silence gets fucking annoying after a while_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _lonely, you mean_

Ronan hesitated, suddenly all too aware of the quiet empty house and the quiet empty farmland outside. He wasn’t lonely. Lonely didn’t cover the half of what was wrong with Ronan. Lonely didn’t explain why his dark thoughts lingered even in the company of friends.

It went deeper than that, less a product of circumstance and more a failing in his head that kept him disconnected from everybody else.

Not lonely, but _lonesome._

But that sounded so fucking pretentious. He cautiously typed ‘ _that too_ ’ and clicked send. Waited, tense, until Alex’s reply came in.

 ****magicianalex:** ** _I don’t think that feeling’s tied to the scenery_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _or it’s not only tied to scenery. Sometimes it follows you when you go_

Ronan felt something tight lodge itself in his throat.

What was he doing? Talking to Alex this way, like they were friends, like they were anything. It was stupid. Reckless. A waste of time.

But he didn’t want to stop. He felt _seen._

 ****greywaren:** ** _you’re a real bundle of fucking joy tonight_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _you wanted honesty, I’m giving you honesty. We can go back to the phone sex hotline if you dial 9._

Ronan smiled faintly at his phone.

No, he definitely didn’t want to stop.

*

It became routine after that, an easy way to mark the days. Weekdays were for passing time but Saturdays were for Alex.

They went back and forth sharing little pieces of themselves. Nothing too personal, nothing that would make them identifiable in real life, but enough to forge a connection.

Alex liked cars as much as Ronan did and could argue about them for hours. He’d dreamt of becoming an astronaut until he realized he was shit scared of heights. He liked animals better than he liked most people and he wanted a dog, but his landlord didn’t allow pets.

In turn Ronan told him about the Barns — not how it was now but how it’d been growing up, dairy cows and field mice and the occasional stray cat. He described the surrounding woods as a place of whimsy and adventure. He shared stories from his childhood, when he’d been happy, when home had been a place full of warmth and love.

It was the purest form of escapism, a surefire way of evading the dark. When Ronan spoke to Alex, he didn’t feel so alone anymore. When Ronan spoke to Alex, his restless energy and dangerous impulses became easier to manage. He _liked_ Alex and that was the goddamn problem, wasn’t it? None of this was real.

But the lines between real and fake were becoming more blurred by the minute. Alex haunted all of Ronan’s thoughts now. He was even there in Ronan’s dreams.

In dreams, Alex always stood within reach. His fingers traced the ink and muscle down Ronan’s back. His mouth opened wide at Ronan’s touch.

Sometimes they did nothing except sit together, shadowed beneath the canopy in the elusive woods. Other times, the dreams took a carnal turn. It was heat and sweat and flesh against flesh. It was Ronan fucking Alex until the hands clutching his back became talons that ripped right through the skin; until the body in his arms turned cold and Kavinsky’s voice at his ear rasped, “The world’s a nightmare”; until the mask slipped away and Alex became Adam Parrish.

Adam, no longer sullen and untouchable but achingly present, tipped his head back and gasped. He still sounded like Alex.

Ronan woke up, ashamed and euphoric.

The shame was what lingered.

*

The shame carried all the way to mass the following Sunday.

The Lynch brothers had long given up the tradition of weekly mass — wasn’t convenient when they each lived in different states — but they still made the effort when their schedules allowed it. It was an excuse, more than anything else, to see each other. Both Matthew and Declan had driven down from New York and DC respectively for this weekend’s endeavor.

Ronan had never been especially devout but he’d always been a believer. That made it harder to stand in the pew today, staring his priest in the eye, like he hadn’t spent the last few months jerking off to and crushing hardcore on a cam boy. Confession wouldn’t cut it anymore.

Afterwards, sitting across from Ronan in the booth at the family-favorite diner, Declan looked up from his grilled cheese sandwich and asked, “Have you thought any more about getting your GED?”

Ronan didn’t scoff but it was a near call. Playing nice with Declan had been part and parcel of last year’s resolution to get his shit together, but that didn’t mean it was easy. Not when Declan posed innocuous sounding questions that served doubly as judgments.

“Don’t give me that look,” Declan said, which meant Ronan was not hiding his thoughts well enough for Declan’s liking. “I’ve held off bringing it up for months.”

“Why the fuck are you bringing it up now?”

“I think it’d be good for you to find a goal to work towards. Something that gets your mind active. Something that gets you out the house.”

“I leave the house all the time,” Ronan said. “I’ve left it right now.”

Declan leveled Ronan with a flat look.

“Guys,” Matthew said, and both brothers softened.

Ronan folded his paper napkin into a bird and avoided meeting Declan’s stare. What good would a GED do? He had more than enough cash to live on. He didn’t need education or a job to get by. He didn’t need anything; everything was disappointing, anyway.

 _The world’s a nightmare_.

Sometimes Ronan could almost understand where K had been coming from. Best not to tell anyone about that.

If he thought that was the end of the conversation, he was sorely mistaken. Declan was relentless. In the car on the way back to the Barns, with Matthew distracted in the backseat, he turned to Ronan and in a low hum said, “It doesn’t have to be your GED. We can do something with the farm. A vegetable garden. A greenhouse. I’ll come down once the semester’s finished and help you set up.”

“Sure you will.”

“I mean it.”

“You hate it here.”

“That’s not—” It was certainly true, so true that Declan could not finish the sentence. “That doesn’t matter. If you’re serious about staying here—”

“No shit I’m serious. It’s home.”

Declan sighed. “Look, level with me—”

This time Ronan didn’t hold back the scoff. Declanisms deserved to be mocked.

“—what else would make you happy?”

Ronan’s eyes shot away from the road.

Declan was watching Ronan carefully, like he was readying to defend himself at the slightest hint of a fight. Ronan didn’t want to fight though. He wanted to climb out the car and escape this conversation. Hard to do when he was the one driving.

“You not meddling, for starters,” he said. “I’ve been doing just fine the way things are.”

“Ronan.”

“What? I got sober. I got my shit together. Now what, you wanna tell me it’s not good enough?”

“It’s okay to want more is what I’m telling you.”

“Try saying that to the mirror,” Ronan bit back, but Declan didn’t get angry. He didn’t even look annoyed; he just looked irritatingly fucking calm.

“I’ve been doing that,” he said. “You should try it, too.”

Ronan had no idea how to respond. He kept driving, silent and focused on the road, until they reached the Barns.

As Declan and Matthew said their goodbyes and got into their respective cars, Ronan’s phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number. He rarely answered even when he did, but he felt off-kilter from what had just passed; his finger was tapping the answer button before his mind was aware of the decision.

“What’s up?” he said.

“So you can work a cellphone after all. Gansey had his doubts,” said Adam Parrish.

Ronan grimaced. He still felt weird about the other night’s dream.

“How’d you get my number?”

“You know in elementary school when teachers used to say ‘there’s no such thing as a stupid question?’ Well, they lied.”

“Shithead. I meant, what you calling me for?”

“We’re holding a surprise party for Gansey’s twenty-first next weekend,” Adam said in that dry monotone voice of his. “Saturday at seven. We’ve got a bar booked for the night.”

“Who’s the we in this scenario?”

“Do you know Henry Cheng? I’ve been told the two of you have a long and colorful history.”

Of course it was Cheng. Cheng lived for drama, be it student council assemblies or toga parties or protests over the lack of chocolate milk in the cafeteria. He was far too gleeful and impassioned and _Aglionby_ for Ronan’s tastes, but Gansey had always seen differently.

“I’ve never met him before,” Ronan said.

“You can meet him at the party,” Adam said without missing a beat. “Don’t be late, okay? I’ve been told it’ll look bad if anyone upstages our ‘man of the hour.’”

“The fuck is he, some blushing bride? Are Cheng and Gansey getting hitched as well?”

“Jesus. Can you imagine what a Cheng-Gansey wedding would look like?”

“Fuck. Two Bridezillas on the warpath. None of us would be safe.”

“I’ve seen what they get like on group projects. I don’t need that stress in my life.”

Ronan smiled faintly. He liked it when Adam was an asshole. It was so much more tolerable than when he played at being polite.

“Look, I gotta go,” Ronan said. “I’ve got shit to do.”

“I’ll text you the details some time this week. Just don’t be late.”

“You already said that.”

“I’m hoping it sinks in. And don’t say anything to Gansey either.”

“Jesus, alright, I know what a fucking surprise is, Parrish.”

“Don’t be late,” Adam said again, probably to wind Ronan up. Then he hung up.

Ronan stared at the phone, in two minds about calling back. Adam hadn’t given him much choice in saying yes or no to attending.

But Ronan knew he had to go. It was for Gansey, after all. He could suffer a night in the company of Ivy League douchebags for Gansey.

He climbed the porch stairs and sat down heavily on the top step. What else would make him happy, Declan wanted to know? Well, that was a loaded fucking question. If he wasn’t happy alone and he wasn’t happy around other people, what else was there?

 _Sometimes it follows you when you go,_ Alex had said. Ronan wondered if he knew the trick for dispelling the dark for good.

*

 ****magicianalex:** ** _been meaning to ask, what’s the story behind your username?_

 ****magicianalex:** ** **__ ** _you don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to. Keep being mysterious, it’s a real turn on_

 ****greywaren:** ** _shithead_

 ** **greywaren:**** _I’d tell you but it’s stupid_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _I promise not to laugh_

 ****greywaren:** ** _how do I know you’re not bullshitting me_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _I’ll turn the camera back on_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _private show just for you_

Alex was kidding surely, pretend flirting in that way he always did, but Ronan’s stomach still curled pleasantly with heat. He’d just watched Alex fuck himself senseless but somehow _this_ felt more indecent. More intimate.

It was luck that Alex would be out of town tomorrow night just like Ronan, luck that he had rescheduled the livestream for tonight instead. Luck, coincidence, serendipity, take your pick. Ronan was just grateful that he didn’t have to wait another week to talk to him; he would’ve spent all of Gansey’s party in the worst of moods, otherwise.

 ****greywaren:** ** _it’s the name of a character_

 ****magicianalex:** ** **__ ** _from a tv show?_

 ****greywaren:** ** _graphic novel_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _so a comic book?_

 ** **greywaren:**** _comics are shorter + serialized. graphic novels are longer + tell a full story_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _ok but is he a superhero?_

 ****greywaren:** ** _knew you’d laugh_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _swear I’m not, I’m intrigued. What’s the book called?_

 ****greywaren:** ** **__ ** _idk_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _I can always google it yknow_

 ****greywaren:** ** _good luck w that, you won’t find shit_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _wait did you write it?_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _you’re a writer?_

Here was the question Ronan hated the most.

_So what do you do? What are your goals? What the fuck are you living for?_

He’d had no answers for Declan. He still had no answers now. He wanted to ask Alex what his thoughts were on traditional versus alternative lifestyles, how he’d gotten into such an obscure business as camming, whether he liked it, whether it fulfilled him, whether there was something or someone else in his life to fill the hole inside him instead.

But he couldn’t. Personal questions would scare Alex off.

 ****greywaren:** ** _I don’t write, I just draw the pictures_

He almost typed out a better explanation, but the full truth was messy and no one had time for sob stories. Personal tragedies were better left unsaid.

 ** **magicianalex:**** _impressive_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _nothing about you seems like it should fit together btw. farmer, drag racer, now artist?_

 ****greywaren:** ** _catholic too_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _no that makes sense. Explains the repression_

Ronan let out a sharp laugh. He liked when Alex slipped up and the asshole came out. It was proof that Alex liked him, or at least trusted him enough to show his less accommodating side.

 ** **greywaren:**** _gotta go soon._ _✈️_ _tomorrow_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _business?_

And _this_ was proof that as much as Ronan felt like Alex knew him, he really didn’t at all.

 ****greywaren:** ** _something like that_

 ** **magicianalex:**** _cryptic_

 ****magicianalex:** ** _don’t let me keep you up then_

 _I’d let you,_ Ronan thought of saying _. I’ll see you anyway in my dreams._

He was losing his damn mind. This was desperation talking. He’d been alone for too long.

Would Alex understand? Was the alienation that drove Ronan to seek Alex out, to build on this connection, the same thing leading Alex to add fuel to the fire? Was Alex unhappy too?

But Ronan could never ask. Too personal. Not allowed.

 ****greywaren:** ** _g_ _night_

_*_

On Saturday Ronan drove straight to the party venue, pulling over for lunch and gas along the way. Adam had made it clear that Gansey wasn’t to know Ronan was in town.

 _Henry says he might suspect something if he sees you_ , had been the exact words. Ronan had pointed out that 1) he’d driven up here for Gansey’s birthday the last two years in a row, and 2) his birthday wasn’t until next Thursday anyway, fucking hell. He’d been overruled.

 _Out of my hands_ , Adam said. _Don’t shoot the messenger._

Yeah, he was a colossal asshole alright.

When Ronan reached the bar (ten minutes early, look at that) the place was already bouncing. He couldn’t see Adam or Cheng but he also couldn’t see his own feet, so that was no surprise.

He waded through the crowds, dodging students and servers carrying trays of precariously positioned fancy cocktail drinks. There were helium party balloons everywhere. The music was loud and awful. The people were unfamiliar and dressed up like pompous douchebags. Ronan felt out of place in his leather jacket and boots. Fuck, he didn’t belong here.

 _Gansey_ , he reminded himself. He was here for Gansey. What did it matter what anyone else had to say about him?

He reached the bar. Looked around. Was that Cheng’s friend Sick Steve talking to one of the bartenders? He’d know where Cheng was, surely.

Ronan was about to make a move but then a hand clutched his elbow. Heat spread through his skin, shocking and electric. He looked up and found himself face to face with Adam.

“Lynch,” Adam said, and dropped his hand. “You made it.”

“Did you really think I wouldn’t?”

Adam shook his head and smiled ruefully. He was dressed in dark high rise pants and a deep green turtleneck, and the colors suited him. He looked otherworldly in the dim bar lighting, standing so close to Ronan that Ronan could count every last freckle on his face.

There was no point denying it — Ronan was attracted to him. Badly. Why else would Adam show up in his dreams?

It didn’t mean anything though, not really. He didn’t know Adam well enough for it to mean anything. It was purely physical, easy enough to discard. Adam was not Alex.

“Where’s Cheng?” Ronan asked.

“With Gansey,” Adam said. “He’s been keeping him distracted all night. Gansey thinks we’re grabbing dinner.”

Ronan nodded and let the conversation drop. He figured Adam would leave but he didn’t, just stood there with his hands in his pockets. Come to think of it, he looked uncomfortable. It wasn’t obvious unless you were paying attention, but Ronan always was and so he noticed the slight unease in Adam’s eyes, the way they kept darting around the room. Surveying the room, like an outlaw tracking all available exits.

Small talk was beyond Ronan’s capabilities. He asked, “You want something to drink?”

“I don’t drink.”

“Me neither.” When Adam raised an eyebrow in question, he added, “I’m an alcoholic.”

Disclosing this piece of info was usually enough to make Gansey’s friends smile awkwardly and then piss the hell off; Adam did neither.

“How long you been sober for?”

“Sixteen months.”

“Damn.”

“That’s nothing,” Ronan said. “I knew this guy, from rehab — fell off the wagon after fifteen years.”

The rehab admission didn’t seem to faze Adam either. Ronan wondered what Gansey had said about him. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Hey. One day at a time, right?” Adam said.

This was what his sponsor, Conor, had said too. Ronan hadn’t checked in with him in months — he hated the talking shit through side of treatment — but the advice had stuck.

Then again, he’d never put himself in the position of having to reject booze before. He’d never had a reason to hang out in bars or clubs. He only went to restaurants with his brothers. Being here tonight would test him, so much so that he almost wished he _had_ texted Conor.

“—in one ear.”

Ronan realized he’d zoned out. “What?”

“I said, if it makes you feel better, I’m deaf in one ear.” Adam looked like he’d rather crawl out of his skin than talk about this. “I can hear fine most of the time. It’s just loud places, crowded rooms, you know — they mess me up.”

“Was it always like that?” Ronan asked. “Your ear?”

Adam shook his head. “I had an accident,” he said. “Head injury. About three years ago.”

That explained the discomfort. Ronan wondered why he’d bothered sharing when it obviously made him uneasy, but then it clicked: quid pro quo. Adam’s misguided moral code apparently extended to disclosing personal info, too.

What a depressing way to live.

The group who’d been blocking the bar grabbed their drinks and left. Ronan watched as Adam deftly veered out of their way before sliding onto the vacated bar stool. There was something about the way he moved, the way he carried himself, that tugged at Ronan’s mind. It reminded him of someone, maybe an actor on TV. Ronan couldn’t place the connection though.

Adam pulled out his phone. He smiled at whatever was on the screen.

“They’re on their way,” he said.

“Already?”

“Henry can’t keep secrets to save himself. It’s a wonder him and Gansey weren’t camped out here before the bar opened.”

Adam stood up then, and Ronan’s muscles tensed. He didn’t want to be left alone at the bar, free to make all the wrong decisions. He didn’t want to be marooned in a roomful of strangers. But he didn’t want to follow Adam either; Adam had a life here, he probably had tons of friends, he certainly wouldn’t want Ronan sticking to him like glue the whole night.

It would be fine. Gansey was on the way. He’d get by.

But then Adam turned around and said, “C’mon, he’ll never see us back here.”

And what else was there to do? Ronan followed.

Through the throng, arms brushing, Adam a close solid presence at Ronan’s side. Ronan felt buzzed, electric, and he couldn’t tell if it was the lively club atmosphere or Adam himself that was causing it. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to embrace it or run the other way.

He thought about Alex. Maybe he was in a club like this right now too, in a different city, a different world. Maybe he, too, was walking around side by side with a beautiful, captivating man.

That hurt to think about but what gave Ronan the right? He wasn’t a hypocrite. Not that he’d ever try it with Adam, but that was besides the point. Whatever connection him and Alex shared didn’t extend to the real world. He wasn’t delusional enough to assume their messages were the equivalent of a fucking marriage proposal.

They reached the front of the room just as the doors opened and Gansey and Henry Cheng strode grandly into the hall.

“Yo, yo, yo, gather round,” Cheng announced into a megaphone. “The president has arrived!”

Adam and Ronan shared a disdainful look.

“ _Miseria fortes viros_ ,” Adam said wryly, and Ronan let out a laugh.

It would be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i said matthew was still at aglionby in the first chapter bc i'm a fool that doesn't know my own timeline apparently!! i've changed it now - he's studying at NYU. the gang are all 20/21 and adam gansey & henry are in their 3rd year at harvard, hope that clears things up!!


	4. Chapter 4

Adam was far from fine.

Rescheduling the livestream for Friday had cost him money, even after advertising the change on his website and Alex’s Twitter account. Customers thrived on routine and a week’s notice was apparently not enough to cut it.

It wasn’t the end of the world. It wasn’t as catastrophic as it would’ve been a year or two ago. But it still wasn’t good, especially not after last month’s car splurge. He’d bought himself a cheap used Ford under the assumption that business would remain steady. Now he was being punished for his hubris.

This month’s rent was covered and he had enough for groceries. Those were the main concerns. But there was the long-term to worry about too — if the customers he’d lost last week took their wallets elsewhere and stayed gone, if he couldn’t lure in new business to replace them, if the slump continued into March…

Adam would survive because he always did. His law school savings account, on the other hand…

Well.

Something would have to give.

As Gansey’s party carried on around him, Adam felt himself drifting further and further away into his head. There was no one there to stop him — he’d lost Gansey and Henry roughly an hour ago, and Ronan had wandered off alongside them. He was just Adam now, alone and adrift in a sea of strange faces.

He steadied himself against the wall. Looked out into the neon lights and buzzing crowds. Studied the movements of all those dancing bodies, so energetic and freewheeling, until something heavy settled inside him and dragged him down to the dark. Envy, perhaps. Longing.

 _Sometimes it follows you when you go_.

He hadn’t been lying when he’d said this to Greywaren. Alex sold fantasies but Greywaren demanded the truth, and Adam had given it to him despite all the rules he had that advised against it. Alex and Adam were supposed to remain separate, but more and more often he’d felt the veneer crumbling in Greywaren’s presence.

It was reckless of Adam. Ill-advised. Greywaren was no different than all the others, really. But Adam could sense all his inner restlessness and dissatisfaction even through the screen. He knew, instinctively, that Greywaren was lonesome just like him.

And it was nice having someone to talk to, someone who understood. Adam was growing to enjoy the company.

He just couldn’t let himself get too comfortable.

“Parrish!”

Adam looked up in the direction of the sound. It was Gansey’s voice. He was standing a few feet away now, face bright and merry and flushed, swarmed by a group of people that Adam dimly recognized from the economics class he’d taken in sophomore year. Ronan Lynch flanked him, arms crossed, body taut, like a Secret Service guard ready to spring into action.

When Adam had first met Ronan, he’d assumed him vicious and uncaring. It was an easy mistake to make — Ronan was built like a boxer and just as quick with his fists. He rarely smiled but often sneered. He deployed his words like weapons and then called it brutal honesty. None of this painted a flattering picture, least not to Adam, who’d spent too much time facing off against casual cruelty and wanted no part of that going forward.

But Ronan was more than just a bomb. Adam could see it now in the way he watched over Gansey, in the very fact of him here in this room full of his biggest vices. This was loyalty. Protectiveness. _Love_. Ronan may not have cared about most people, but if he picked you, you got all of him.

Ronan, too, looked Adam’s way, and when their eyes met Adam felt it in his gut: that sudden tight clench, all simmering heat and electricity. He remembered the livestream from last month, when he’d seen Ronan so vividly in his mind. He remembered dreaming of Ronan that night.

Adam looked away first.

“Adam Parrish!” Gansey announced when Adam joined the circle, and if Adam hadn’t already known Gansey was drunk this would’ve confirmed it. He directed his attention to the rest of the group as he said, “You all know Parrish, don’t you? Parrish here is one of the brightest minds Harvard has to offer. He’s a true intellectual, it must be said.”

Adam tried very hard not to cringe. Was this how it felt to have your mom cheer you on loudly from the bleachers as you stumbled last place to the finish line during sports day?

“Really?” a dark-haired woman said. She didn’t sound disbelieving but there was a wry tilt to her smile, and somehow that was worse. “What’s your major again, Adam?”

“History,” Adam said. He wracked his brain for this woman’s name, for any of these people’s names, but he came up short. “Don’t let Gansey fool you, he’s top of the class.”

“Oh, nonsense.” Gansey’s voice got all low and conspiratorial as he said, “Adam’s a shoe-in for law school. He’s going to leave the rest of us mortals behind in the dust.”

Adam wanted to crawl inside his skin. He couldn’t even be mad at Gansey because his smile was so earnest. How could he know what barriers Adam was up against? Adam had never shared.

“Are you taking the LSAT this summer?” asked a different friend, a bearded man in a shirt-vest combo. “I was thinking of waiting till fall, but my advisor said the earlier the better. In case I have to resit, you know?” He rolled his eyes at this.

“I’m taking it in June,” said Adam.

“Yeah? Who’s your tutor?”

“Sorry?”

“Your tutor. I’ve got the number for one, if you’re looking— a 3L student. He scored a 176 his first time.”

Adam felt stunned. His fists clenched in his pocket. He couldn’t stand here talking about his life and dreams with these glittering trust fund kids, pretending their priorities were the same. Their lifeboats were fancy tutors where Adam’s was sex work. They had nothing in common.

“Hey, Parrish.” Ronan’s gruff voice cut through all the noise. It was the first Adam had heard him speak in a while.

“What?” Adam said.

Ronan nodded at the bar. “I still owe you that drink.”

Adam stared at him blankly. He’d told Ronan he didn’t drink. Ronan had told Adam that _he_ was a recovering alcoholic. What was he—?

Then Adam noticed it: the slight glint of mischief in his eyes. This was an out.

Ronan raised his eyebrows in challenge.

Adam rose to it and said, “So you do.”

Ronan broke away from the group and Adam excused himself to follow. He thought Gansey might have said something, called out to him maybe, but then everyone was talking all at once. He couldn’t be sure. He didn’t look back.

Ronan reached the bar and then veered right past it. He was heading for the doors, pushing through the throng without a care in the world. Adam attempted to do the same, palms sweating, skin was buzzing with the thrill of anticipation. There was an intensity to the way Ronan moved, every step infused with purpose. He was _magnetic._

They made it all the way outside and onto the sidewalk and then, only then, did Ronan turn to look at Adam. Adam was struck by the confidence that took — to be so sure Adam was following, that Adam wouldn’t stray.

“So, drinks?” Adam said, and Ronan smiled savagely.

“You looked ready to spill blue blood on the floor back there,” he said. “I’m just doing my bit to keep the cops out the road.”

“Well, thanks.”

Ronan nodded in acknowledgement. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. The weather wasn’t bad exactly — no wind, no rain — but there was that typical New England chill in the air, a stark change from the grimy heat of the club. Adam hadn’t worn anything over his turtleneck and now he was feeling the sting.

“I’m gonna walk around for a bit,” Adam said when the silence dragged on, “get some air. You can head back in, if you want.”

“Fuck that. You think I wanna hang with those smug pricks any more than you do?”

“What do you want, then?”

Ronan tilted his head in consideration. Adam watched.

“My car’s around the block,” he said.

Bad idea. Staying at the party wasn’t a choice; it was obligation.

But _god_ , Adam wanted to leave. He wanted to drop his responsibilities, drop all his worries and get into the front seat of that sleek sports car. The peace wouldn’t last long — him and Ronan always fought eventually — but for now it was more attractive than everything waiting behind those club doors. It was more attractive than getting lost in the crowds and falling prey to his own dark thoughts.

Still. “We can’t just ditch Gansey.”

“He’s with Cheng,” Ronan said. “Besides, he’s drunk off his ass. We’ll be back before he knows we’re gone.”

“ _We’ll_ know.”

“Don’t give me that holier than thou bullshit. You weren’t even trying to look interested back there.”

He was right but Adam wouldn’t admit that. “That’s not the point,” he said.

Ronan shrugged. His face said, _do what you want, see if I care._

“Whatever, man,” is what came out. “You wanna make yourself miserable, be my fucking guest.”

He turned around and strode down the street, and Adam understood then that saving Adam from an uncomfortable conversation had been as much for Ronan’s benefit as it had been for his. A bar wasn’t an ideal hangout spot for a recovering alcoholic; who could blame Ronan for needing an out?

Adam watched as he walked away, _one step two step three_ , before something in him snapped.

“You’re such an asshole.” He jogged to catch up.

“ _Nemo sine vitio est_.”

Adam had excelled at Latin and he knew this quote well. _No one is without fault_.

He rolled his eyes and said, “Some have more than most.”

“ _A_ _liena vitia in oculis habemus, a tergo nostra sunt_ _,”_ Ronan said with mocking precision.

It took a second to translate this time, but once Adam did a sudden laugh burst out of him, escaping before he could reign in it.

“Seneca?”

“De Ira.”

“Fuck.” He looked at Ronan with a sense of wonder. He thought, _you’re one surprise after another._ He said, “You’re so pretentious.”

Ronan gave Adam a thorough glance over, his eyes roaming all the way down Adam’s body and back up again. Adam felt that simmering heat from before come flooding back, flaying him, undoing him.

“And you say I’m the hypocrite.”

They rounded the block and got into Ronan’s BMW, and the heaviness inside Adam immediately settled. He didn’t even mind when Ronan started the engine and electronica began pounding from the speakers. The music felt right in that moment. Prayerful and alluring, whispering of fast rides, dark places, fire and hunger and sex.

Ronan left behind the traffic of the city center and kept heading east. He hit the freeway and floored it, and Adam tipped his head back and enjoyed the ride. He didn’t much care about the destination. He wasn’t sure Ronan _had_ a destination; he seemed content just to drive.

Adam understood that intimately. There was freedom to be found behind the wheel, foot on the gas, stifling world reduced to a blip in the rear view. He’d only had his Ford for a few weeks and it had nothing on Ronan’s flashy M4, but he still enjoyed the independence it afforded him.

And Ronan looked _right_ at the helm of this car, his face half shadows half neon. He looked more himself than he did anywhere else: powerful, intense and a little bit wild.

He was unbearably sexy. Adam was senselessly turned on.

Did Ronan feel it too? Adam was certain the chemistry wasn’t all in his head. He’d noticed the way Ronan looked at him when they met at bar earlier tonight, the way Ronan looked at him all those weeks ago in the car, disinterest practiced but incomplete.

Was this why he’d brought Adam out here tonight? To hook up? Adam wouldn’t say no to that, if so. He wanted it.

But wanting wasn’t always a good excuse.

“How come you don’t drink?”

The words broke through the comfortable quiet, surprising Adam. His brows furrowed. “Not everyone who doesn’t drink has a deep reason for it.”

“Right.” Ronan didn’t scoff but it was obvious he wanted to. “And not everyone’s as goddamn calculating as you. You don’t do anything unless there’s a reason for it.”

“Are you complimenting me or insulting me?”

“You’re stalling, Parrish.”

He was, but only because he didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t about to declare his tragic backstory and beg for pity like some stock romantic movie cliche, _oh woe is me and my sad little life_. He didn’t owe Ronan that.

He considered the alternatives. Not the whole truth but a piece of it. The part that mattered, the part that was all him.

“I don’t like the idea of it,” he said, “of losing control. I’ve seen what that does to some people, you know, how it brings out the worst in them…I just wouldn’t want to know what that looks like, for me.”

“Scared you’ll see something you don’t like?”

Adam didn’t much like what he saw while sober; he was _afraid_ , more like, of what monster he’d find while drunk.

“Something like that,” he muttered.

The car lapsed into silence once more. Adam twisted one hand in the seatbelt and stared out the window. Trees whizzed by in blurring motion. They were leaving the city behind, approaching the vast greenery of the countryside. Where Adam felt most himself.

“When I used to drink,” Ronan said finally, “I wasn’t a different person. It was more like, I was the me without a filter. The me that didn’t care about consequences.”

“Are you telling me sober you does?”

“Asshole.” He smiled. “If I didn’t care about consequences we’d be going a shit ton faster than 80 right now, trust me.”

“You do realize 80’s also above the speed limit, don’t you?”

“Semantics.”

“It’s really not.”

“80 barely feels like speeding.”

“I’d love to see you stand up and say that in court. ‘It barely felt like murder, your honor. He walked right in front of my gun.’”

“Whatever, lawyer boy,” he said. “I’m just saying — booze doesn’t make you do anything you don’t already want to do.”

Adam turned this over in his mind. Had his father always known he wanted to hurt Adam, or had it taken the drink to peel back the layers and reveal these distressing truths? How could Adam be sure he hadn’t inherited the same capacity for violence when he’d never given himself opportunity to unleash it?

It wasn’t worth thinking about. He asked, “What made you quit?”

Ronan took a while to answer. When he did, his gaze was pensive. “This guy I knew, another addict…it fucked his whole life up. I figured, I could keep going, end up like him or, I don’t know, I could stop such being a screw-up and try to turn things around. So I got my shit together. Some of it, anyway. Went to rehab. Spent some time in DC. Fucking hated DC and came back home.”

It was not the whole truth, Adam suspected, but it was enough to paint the picture, and Adam watched Ronan with a sense of newfound respect. They had more in common than he’d thought: they’d both made the conscious choice to try for more, to be more, to reject the path they were on for something better. They’d taken fate into their own hands and warped it like magicians.

“Why DC?”

“Declan — my brother — he lives there. I crashed at his place for a couple months after treatment. Didn’t trust myself.”

“And home is the farm?”

“The Barns,” Ronan said. “Nowhere else to be.”

That sounded awfully bleak but Adam wasn’t ready to challenge him on it. “Must be nice, all that open space.”

“It’s a fucking delight.”

And this was sarcasm, delivered with a bitter twist to the mouth. It was not Adam’s place to probe, though. It was not Adam’s right.

“I’ve got a friend who lives on a farm too,” he said. He couldn’t decide if this was a lie or not; _was_ Greywaren a friend? Could you really call someone a friend when they paid to watch you get off every weekend?

“Hard to believe,” Ronan said.

“Why’s that hard to believe?”

“I didn’t think you had any other friends.”

Adam’s shoulders hunched, defenses ready on his tongue, but then he saw the devilish smile Ronan was wearing. Just a joke. He didn’t know how neatly he’d hit the bullseye.

“You’d be surprised, Lynch. There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Adam replied, carefully nonchalant. Ronan’s eyes glanced slightly off the road and met his; Adam felt it all the way down to his toes, felt it like the car was going up in flames.

They pulled off the freeway and about turned, driving around for a little while before heading back on going the direction they came. Back to the city. Back to the party. Back to the weight of responsibility.

It wasn’t a disappointment. Hooking up with Ronan would only invite awkwardness at best or disaster at worst. He was Gansey’s best friend, after all. Adam couldn’t luck out on never having to see him again.

Still. Adam _wanted_. He wanted to feel all that muscle and raw strength with his hands. He wanted to know if Ronan was just as intense in bed as he was behind the wheel, if he was just as competent, just as wild. He wanted to know what Ronan tasted like.

But Adam had been well acquainted with want for a long time now. He knew how to manage his expectations.

“That offer you made last month,” Adam tested out the words as they got closer and closer to the city center. “Is it still on?”

“What, teaching you how to drive stick?” Ronan said. “I dunno. Depends. Do I still get to cash in on that favor?”

“I’ll find someone else if you’re gonna be a dick about it.”

“Get off your high horse, man. Offer’s there if you wanna take it.”

It didn’t feel like taking advantage after tonight. Ronan did good things when it suited him, when he got something out of the deal too. And giving him an excuse to get in his car was practically a favor on its own.

So Adam nodded and said, “I’d like that,” and hoped he wasn’t being too transparent.

“All right then. Sure.” Ronan drummed his fingers against the wheel. He did not remove his gaze from the road. “Name a time.”

*

****greywaren:** ** _dude. overtime on a sunday?_

****magicianalex:** ** _don’t sound too excited on my account_

Adam leaned back on his bed and brought the laptop with him. He was tired, worn out, his body tender in more places than one. He’d swapped today’s shift at the library for a Monday evening shift instead on the off chance that Gansey’s party kept him up all through the night. A full day of studying had sounded promising at the time. But then he’d realized this morning, with all the weekend’s financial woes weighing him down, that there was a better use of some of that time: extra shifts at the job that paid best.

It’d been a gamble. He hadn’t expected the livestream to gain much traction, not at this much short notice. But a handful of his regulars had been present and he’d made a decent amount of cash. Greywaren had been present.

Adam told himself he wasn’t excessively pleased about that latter fact.

 ** **greywaren:**** _didn’t mean it that way. Seeing you is always exciting_

****greywaren:** ** _but don’t you ever take a break?_

****magicianalex:** ** _how excited are you right now_

****greywaren:** ** _jesus not in the pervy way_

****greywaren:** ** _I just like talking to you_

****greywaren:** ** _and I know you’re trying to distract me bc you don’t wanna answer the question_

Damn, Greywaren was getting too good at this. They’d only been talking for a month and he had Adam’s deflection tactics figured out.

It was disconcerting, frankly. Adam didn’t like being so known. It made him feel… _vulnerable._ Stripped open. Defenseless. Anyone could do damage to another human being, but it was the ones that really knew you that landed the hardest blows.

And Greywaren could lands a _lot_ of blows. He could ruin Adam’s life. That was always the risk with talking to the clients — he’d heard the horror stories of cam girls being tracked down and stalked, of vengeful clients who didn’t know how to separate fantasy from reality — but the threat hadn’t felt so immediate until now.

It wasn’t like Greywaren was the only client Adam had ever hit up. He’d talked with most of the regulars at least once or twice. But that had all been Alex. _This_ was different. This was staring down at the screen and realizing how much of his own self had leaked through without his awareness.

He could stop. The practical move would be to stop, pull away, ease back into the flirty detached persona.

Adam knew he wouldn’t do that.

 ** **magicianalex:**** _I like being productive. It feels good to accomplish stuff_

****greywaren:** ** _there’s something wrong w you_

****magicianalex:** ** _you’re not the first to tell me that_

Greywaren didn’t respond straight away, which was fair enough; he was probably deciding whether or not to take Adam’s joke at face value. Adam reached for his phone in the meantime and unlocked the screen.

No new messages.

That was fine. He’d exchanged numbers with Ronan when they got back to the party last night, and Adam had texted him earlier today to find out when he was driving home and if he’d be up for making good on his promise sometime this week, but so far no response. Adam told himself he wasn’t disappointed.

****greywaren:** ** _do people know about this then?_

****magicianalex:**** _what?_

 ** **greywaren:**** _the cam stuff. Do people irl know?_

 ** **magicianalex:**** _yeah I’m just wearing a mask for the fun of it_

 ** **greywaren:**** _so no one knows? Not even friends?_

****magicianalex:** ** _it’s not the kind of thing you can just bring up w people_

****greywaren:**** _why not_

 ** **magicianalex:**** _are you serious_

 ** **greywaren:**** _always_

Adam gritted his teeth. Greywaren wasn’t stupid, but sometimes he could be ignorant as hell.

****magicianalex:** ** _try this: google sex work stigma and get back to me_

****greywaren:** ** **__ ** _yeah no shit I get that_

****greywaren:** ** _I’m not saying tell your priest_

****greywaren:** ** _but the whole point of friends is they don’t care about the weird fucked up shit you do_

The thought of sitting Gansey down for _that_ conversation had Adam on the verge of laughing hysterically. He hadn’t even told Gansey about his family, or about the rural town he stemmed from and the hick accent that came along with it, or about growing up the kind of poor that even other poor folks shook their heads at. Why would he? The whole point of Harvard and law school and white collar success was so he could shrug off all that dirt altogether. So he could be _someone else_.

Backstories were messy and no one had time for that.

****magicianalex:** ** _sounds like some real great friends you got there_

****greywaren:** ** _yeah there’s a whole 2 of them_

****magicianalex:** ** _wow. and here I was thinking you were homecoming king w all that natural charm of yours_

****greywaren:** ** _man you are rude as shit_

_Nemo sine vitio est_ _,_ Adam thought. He typed:

****magicianalex:** ** _we’ve all got our flaws_

****magicianalex:** ** _what are your friends like?_

****greywaren:** ** _massive nerds_

****greywaren:** ** _smarter than me_

****greywaren:** ** _you’d like one of them. He’s a fucking smartass just like you. And he likes cars_

****magicianalex:** ** _is he hot?_

****greywaren:** ** _very_

****magicianalex:** ** _sounds like you have a type_

****greywaren:** ** _told you, I’m a simple guy_

****magicianalex:** ** _does he swing this way?_

****greywaren:** ** _think so_

****magicianalex:** ** _think so or hope so?_

****greywaren:** ** _ha ha fuck you_

****magicianalex:** ** _you’d like that wouldn’t you_

****greywaren:** ** _well yeah_

That was more like it. That was what Adam was used to hearing, what he’d been waiting for Greywaren to say all along.

So why did it make his heart race?

****magicianalex:** ** _how would you do it? If you could fuck me_

There was a moment’s hesitation before Greywaren responded:

****greywaren:** ** _you serious_

****magicianalex:** ** _yeah_

****magicianalex:** ** _wanna know what you’re into_

****greywaren:** ** _but you just got off_

He had a point there. Adam could fake it — the camera was off, no one would see — but he didn’t want to. Greywaren was a good customer, Greywaren was entertainment, Greywaren was something weirdly like a friend. If they were going to sext, Adam wanted it to be real.

He considered his options. One answer immediately jumped to mind.

****magicianalex:** ** _what if I gave you a private show_

****greywaren:** ** _you’ve pulled that line before_

****magicianalex:** ** _I mean it_

****greywaren:** ** _how would that work?_

****magicianalex:** ** _same as the livestreams but you’d be the only one there_

****magicianalex:** ** _you can talk me through it_

_You can turn the camera on,_ but that was taking it too far. Better not to know what Greywaren really looked like. Better to imagine him as anyone Adam wanted. What was the point in selling fantasies if you couldn’t enjoy them too?

****greywaren:** ** **__ ** _jesus fuck alex_

****magicianalex:** ** _is that a yes?_

****greywaren:** ** **__ ** _how much_

The mention of money brought Adam to his senses. That’s what this was — a transaction.

He couldn’t get too comfortable.

****magicianalex:** ** _$5 per minute_

That was what he’d charged every other time he’d done privates. He felt weird about charging the same with Greywaren but his site took a 40% cut of whatever he earned. Charging less would not be worth it.

 ** **greywaren:**** _when?_

Adam considered the week’s schedule. He had his library shift tomorrow after class but he finished at nine. He had Wednesday’s video all filmed and ready to upload. He had essays to write, tests to study for, the LSAT to prep for, but none of these tasks required set hours.

He had Ronan’s offer to follow up on but Ronan still hadn’t texted back.

****magicianalex:** ** **__ ** _name a time_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soo I forgot to add the latin translation in the last chapter but that one was from trk anyway. translations for this chapter:
> 
> "nemo sine vitio est" - no one is without fault (seneca the elder)  
> "aliena vitia in oculis habemus, a tergo nostra sunt" - the vices of others we have before our eyes, our own are behind our backs (seneca the younger)
> 
> also you guys don't need to know this but i took a break from writing this yesterday to go to the grocery store and there was this i8 parked outside (a white one so it lost some points, but still) and i got so excited i took a picture and sent it to my gf. so if you're wondering why so much of this story either takes place in or revolves around cars like ok we get it they love cars ENOUGH WITH THE CAR PORN ALREADY well, that is why. pynch said there's nothing sexier than a sexy car and i said cheers bro i'll drink to that


	5. Chapter 5

A private show.

Alex wanted to give Ronan — give Greywaren — a private show. This week. Tuesday night. Just him and Alex and no more prying eyes.

Holy _fucking shit._

Concentrating on anything else was out of the question. Ronan felt edgy, tense, on the verge of lighting something on fire or tearing down backroads til he burned tires or climbing to the rooftop and screaming. He couldn’t sleep. He struggled to eat. Alex haunted all of his thoughts, dreaming or awake. It was becoming a goddamn problem.

Gansey could clearly tell something was up. He kept shooting Ronan these sidelong glances every time Ronan rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, or drummed a tune against the furniture, or tapped his foot too many times or didn’t tap enough or, damn, _breathed funnily_. Ronan really wasn’t sure what he was doing to broadcast all his internal turmoil. Maybe Gansey had simply known him for too long.

But Gansey didn’t ask questions. Either he’d learned how to be less of an aggressive busybody over the years at Harvard, or he was too preoccupied with his own problems for a change. Probably the latter, judging by the way he kept moping around the apartment. Apparently shit had got real after Ronan and Adam left the party Saturday night.

“Henry got her number off a friend,” Gansey was saying now, slouched at the kitchen table with a coffee in his hands. “Do you think I should text her? Not to start a conversation, she certainly won’t be receptive to that. But to apologize. That’s the sporting thing to do, right? Women like men that own up to their mistakes.”

Ronan, who had only been half listening up to this point, shrugged his shoulders. He grabbed a tangerine from the fruit bowl, tossed it with one hand and caught it with the other.

“Lynch.”

“Dick.”

“Some advice wouldn’t go amiss.”

Ronan rolled his eyes. “How would I know what women like?” He snagged another tangerine and started juggling. “Send her your balls in a jar. You’re halfway there anyway.”

Gansey shot him a flat look. “She already thinks I’m an ignorant chauvinist,” he said. “The aim here is not to confirm that!”

“What was it you said to this chick again?”

“I told you already.”

“You tell me a lot of things. I only tune into the important bits.”

“This _was_ the important—” Gansey stopped and breathed in. He took a long drink of coffee. “I told her to take a break and join the party — because she looked tired, you know, I thought I was doing her a favor —and she said she was working for a living, not for the fun of it, so I said I’d take care of the lost income, and—” His face fell. “She didn’t take it very well.”

Ronan grinned savagely. “No shit?”

“She started yelling at me, ‘I am not a prostitute!’ Really dramatically too. _And_ loud. Everyone around us was looking.”

He almost wished he’d been there to see that. There was nothing more entertaining than watching Gansey divebomb in public.

“Well fuck, man,” Ronan said. His tangerine fell neatly into the palm of his hand. “Seems like there’s only one thing you can do here.”

“What’s that?”

“Ask her out.”

“You—” Gansey pointed at Ronan as Ronan started cackling. It was not a threatening gesture at all; more like that of a beleaguered single mom trying to control her unruly kid at the supermarket. “Remind me never to ask for your advice again,” he finished, and then sighed and stared forlornly at his coffee mug. He muttered something under his breath that sounded vaguely like ‘just trying to be nice.’

Ronan set the tangerines down and checked the time on his phone. Eight forty five. He had five minutes left, give or take, and then he’d have to leave. Get the laptop set up. Mentally prepare himself. The thought sent his skin itching.

 _It’s no big deal_ , he told himself, _no different than usual,_ but that was a lie if he’d ever heard one. The other livestreams had required nothing beyond passive participation. They’d never been about him.

_Y_ _ou can talk me through it_ _._

Ronan couldn’t get away with just watching tonight. Alex had expectations to be met.

“Hey,” Ronan said as the clock ticked closer to nine, “I’m gonna try and get some sleep.”

“Already?”

He shrugged. “Got shit to do tomorrow.”

“Oh, of course. You’re heading home, I take it?”

“Uh, no. I’m giving Parrish driving lessons.”

And here was the other thing that kept Ronan from sleeping, the other face that was never too far from the front of his mind: Adam Parrish.

Things between Adam and Ronan had changed since the party. Or better still, the party had illuminated what had always been lingering beneath the surface: that palpable chemistry that went unsaid.

After the car ride, they’d returned to the bar side by side and stayed that way for the duration of the night. They’d spent hours trading Latin digs back and forth, sharing stories about Gansey, joking about the rest of the guests, until slowly the last of the ice between them melted. They were friendsnow. Ronan felt certain of this fact. He’d broken past Adam’s guard and won his approval, and Adam had certainly earned his.

They were _friends_ and now Ronan had plans to pick Adam up after class tomorrow and teach him how to drive stick, because that was what friends did, and what did it matter if close proximity to Adam made Ronan’s heart race like he was pushing 90 on the streets? Ronan didn’t do hook-ups and he lived eight hours away and besides, law school shoe-ins didn’t settle for losers like him.

And there was Alex to think of, anyway.

“Parrish can already drive,” Gansey pointed out. “And we both have class tomorrow.”

“After class, obviously. And not manuals he can’t.”

“Ah.” Gansey’s voice remained perfectly neutral. It set Ronan’s skin on edge.

“What the hell is it?”

“What’s what?”

“You’re giving me one of your funny looks again.”

“Funny looks? What funny looks?”

“Jesus, man,” Ronan sighed, “spit it out.”

“I’m just happy to hear you’re getting along, that’s all,” Gansey said, and then he beamed brightly enough to light up the room. “My friends are finally friends, what more can I ask for?”

“You are weird as shit, you know that?” Ronan said. “And I never said we were friends.”

“You didn’t have to.” Gansey shook his head, fondly amused, and then took another sip of coffee. “I knew you’d like him. The two of you have a lot more in common than you think.”

This was not something Ronan wanted to dwell on too closely. Couldn’t afford to consider where that path would lead.

“He’s all right,” Ronan muttered. Gansey looked at him knowingly.

Yeah, time to go.

“For curiosity’s sake,” Gansey said when Ronan was halfway out the kitchen door, “if you’re not leaving tomorrow, when _are_ you leaving?”

“Whenever you kick me out.”

“You know I’d never do that.”

Ronan frowned. This was also something he didn’t want to think too much about. Didn’t want to consider what would be waiting for him back home, when he was alone again with all his unsavory thoughts.

“Whenever then,” he said, and picked up the pace. “Night, old man.”

“Ronan—”

But Ronan was already gone, through the door, down the hall, into the guest room. He locked the door behind him, then pulled his laptop out of its bag and switched it on. He settled on top of the comforter with the computer propped up on his stomach. Logged in. Found the livestream link. Hesitated.

There was a riot in his gut and there was no point denying it was nerves. This whole setup felt weirdly like a first date. A first date where sex was not only expected but guaranteed.

Okay, so not like any first date Ronan had been on. It wasn’t like there’d been many of those anyway.

Ronan connected his headphones through the jack, clicked on the link and waited.

It didn’t take long for Alex to show up. He was sitting on his bed cross legged, dressed in sweatpants and a plain navy crew neck. His face wasn’t in frame but his hands were; he waved towards the camera and said, “Hey.”

It all felt so weirdly normal. Alex looked so _casual_ , like he was greeting his buddy at the gym and not the guy who paid him to basically make porn. Ronan felt a hysterical laugh bubbling up in his chest.

 _sup_ , he typed back.

There was a second’s delay as Alex read the message. Then he said, voice smooth as honey, “Not much. Been too busy thinking of you all day.”

Practical Ronan said this was a cheesy line if he’d ever heard one and what were the odds Alex used it on every guy he performed for? Horny Ronan said, _me too,_ and clicked send.

“You were thinking of me?” Ronan could hear the smile in Alex’s voice. “How much?”

Too much was the answer.

_passed by this florist on the road today_

_they had a shit ton of giant fancy ferns in the window. looked like your scene_

Another pause. When Alex spoke this time, he sounded different. Less flirty, more awed. “You’re really sweet, y’know that?”

Sweet was not a word Ronan would’ve associated with himself. It was not a word that anyone had ever associated with him, which made it all the better to hear from Alex. It was like Alex had peeled back Ronan’s layers and found new dimensions that Ronan hadn’t yet known existed, and how wonderful, how _freeing_ to think he could be something more in this man’s eyes. Something greater.

 _I don’t get that a lot,_ he replied.

“No? What do people usually say about you?”

_that I’m an asshole_

Alex let out a laugh, sudden and bright. It was a lovely sound, musical even. It tugged at Ronan’s mind for reasons he could not identify.

“Well,” Alex said, “they’re not wrong, are they? They’re just not seeing the full picture.”

Ronan thought about the other night at the party. The surprise on Adam’s face when Ronan quoted Seneca, the wonder in his eyes, the unspoken _you’re not what I expected_. No one had ever seen the full picture, except perhaps Gansey. Ronan had never let anyone else get too close. Even K, who’d thought he could see everything Ronan was, really hadn’t seen much at all.

And yet here Ronan was, sharing everything with this stranger. Vulnerability came so much easier like this, identities hidden behind the screen.

Alex leaned over to adjust the webcam and Ronan’s heart gave an excited stutter in his chest. Was the nature of their arrangement about to change? Was Alex about to reveal his face?

But then his face came into view, covered up by the same black mask he always wore. Ronan told himself he wasn’t disappointed. Didn’t have the right to feel disappointed. It wasn’t like Alex had ever seen him.

“Sorry,” Alex said, all warm southern charm. “It gets weird sometimes, seeing my face covered up on the screen. Feels like I’m this X-rated superhero.”

 _all you need’s a name change_ , Ronan said. _call me man of steel_

“Absolutely not.” Alex shook his head, but then added, “Try Professor XXX.”

_captain action_

“Barebackdevil.”

_thor’s mighty hammer_

“What about just Iron Man?” Alex suggested. “It’s subtle but suggestive.”

_iron man? iron fist_

“Fuck, okay, you win. That is absolutely terrible.”

Ronan grinned at the computer. What had he been so nervous about? He knew Alex. He knew how to talk to Alex. Talking with Alex felt more natural than talking with most people he’d met for real.

But then Alex stopped laughing and composed himself. He stared right into the camera, like he was looking right at Ronan, and Ronan felt the sudden shift in temperature. The room charged with possibility.

“So, I’ve been wondering—” Alex’s fingers played with the hem of his shirt as he slowly spoke; Ronan couldn’t tear his gaze away, “—what your voice sounds like.”

_american_

“Yeah, I figured. That doesn’t narrow it down much.”

_little deeper than yours_

Alex smiled like he was bemused. He rolled back the edge of the shirt, revealing a tantalizing glint of skin that made Ronan’s pulse spike. “I was thinking you could turn your mic on tonight. Save you typing all the time.”

Fuck. The thought of that, being able to talk to Alex for real, was intoxicating. But there were other things to think of. Gansey, for starters.

_no can do_

_unless you want my jackass friend barging in halfway through_

“Right, my bad. I didn’t know you had roommates.”

Ronan considered how to respond to that.

‘I don’t have roommates, I’m just hanging out here in my friend’s guest room to avoid going home.’

‘I hate it here but I hate being alone even more.’

‘I’m a goddamn loser and you have no idea. You’d hate me if you had any idea.’

But he couldn’t say those things. Couldn’t get too real. It would kill this perfect fantasy world he’d created, where he was someone worth knowing, someone more.

 _he’s a fucking prude too,_ Ronan supplied, because at least that wasn’t a lie.

Alex’s mouth quirked at the corners. Then he traced his bottom lip with the pad of his thumb.

Shit.

“We can talk like this all night but I don’t think it’s what you’re paying me for.” The tip of his thumb dipped inside his mouth, and Ronan felt it in his gut. He chewed at the bands around his wrist. Adjusted the collar of his t-shirt. Tipped his head back to the ceiling and quietly swore.

Shit damn.

_you wanna talk all night, we can do that_

“Really? So you don’t want me to take this off?” He gestured at the sweatshirt. Ronan was nodding before his brain caught up, before he remembered Alex couldn’t see him.

_ok_

_do it_

Alex slowly peeled the sweatshirt off and dumped it somewhere on the floor. He was shirtless now, all that fine summer-tan skin on display. Ronan marveled at the sight of him. Not built, not weedy, but fit and wiry, exactly Ronan’s type. His shoulders were all freckles and Ronan wanted to trace the swirling patterns, wanted to join the dots with his finger, his tongue, until they formed constellations.

Fuck, Ronan _wanted_.

 _you’re fucking beautiful,_ he said.

Alex smiled but didn’t respond. One hand was trailing its way down his chest, wet thumb circling around one nipple. The other teased at his waistband. He shifted onto his knees, giving Ronan a perfect view of his crotch. He wasn’t hard yet but he wasn’t all soft either. Ronan could see the barest outline of Alex’s dick through the flimsy material and it made his mouth water.

“Still with me?” Alex said, all teasing.

_you gonna take those off?_

“Depends. Are you asking or telling?”

Ronan considered the other night’s conversation — _you can talk me through it_ — and then typed out, _take them off_

_but slowly_

_show me how you’d do it if I was there_

“Jesus.” Alex drew the word out. He didn’t sound at all put off by the demands, which told Ronan it was the right move. He’d meant what he said the other night, then. He wanted Ronan talking him through this, instructing him.

Ronan hadn’t known til now that he had that in him, to be so brash. It was another of Ronan’s layers brought to light, another variation of himself he hadn’t considered until Alex teased it out.

Alex undid his drawstrings; Ronan followed. Alex slid his pants down his thighs, skillfully kicking them off once they got bunched around his knees; Ronan did the same with a lot less success, shaking off the fabric when it caught around his ankle like a wet dog who’d just come in out the rain.

When he finally got himself resettled on the bed with the laptop beside him, his breath caught. Alex was leaning back on one hand, lazily touching himself with the other. His black briefs did very little to hide the growing bulge in his pants and Ronan hungered for him so intensely he felt it right down to his toes. All the blood in his body rushed to his crotch.

_you look so good right now_

“Just right now, huh?”

_fuck no_

_always_

_you look goddamn hot no matter what_

Alex’s breath hitched, but that could’ve just been coincidence.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “I’ve got toys I can use. Dildos. Beads. Whatever you can think of. Anything you’ve seen in my videos.”

He’d seen a _lot_ in Alex’s videos but that didn’t matter right now. Ronan wasn’t looking for some big dramatic performance. He didn’t want a performance at all. He just wanted Alex to feel good and get off.

_what’s your favorite toy?_

“Uh—” The sudden nervousness suggested this was a question Alex had never had to answer before. “I guess…Hold on a sec.”

He disappeared out of frame. Ronan waited, buzzing with anticipation and the illicit thrill of what they were doing. He ran a hand over the front of his boxers, sighing at how good it felt.

Alex came back less than a minute later. He dropped a bottle of lube on the bed before sitting down in the camera frame. And there, in his hands—

_man for real…purple?_

“Don’t laugh, it was thirty percent off.”

Ronan laughed anyway, then sobered up real soon as he watched Alex’s clever hand glide up and down the toy. It was a pretty realistic replica if you ignored the color, all veiny like the real thing, with a suction cup at the bottom. Same length as his dick or thereabouts. Just as thick, too.

“What do you think?” Alex said. “Should I fuck myself with this?”

Ronan gave himself another stroke. He felt those words reverberating through him, inviting out something greedy and dark-edged and possessive.

_fuck yeah_

_turn over and take your pants off_

Alex didn’t hesitate. He grabbed the laptop and turned around, back to the webcam as he stripped. And fuck, his ass looked so good — even better when his hands started kneading at the skin. Ronan wanted to get his own hands on it, wanted to reach through the screen and _touch._

“You know when I said I was thinking of you?” There was an edge to Alex’s voice now, pure heady hunger that set Ronan’s skin alight. “I meant it.”

_yeah?_

“All day in class…couldn’t concentrate. Prepped for it the minute I got home.”

Jesus Christ. The mental image of that — Alex in bed for hours, fingering himself with Ronan on his mind — was too hot to handle. Ronan didn’t care if it was true or not. He wanted to believe it so he did. He reached beneath his boxers and pulled his dick out. Stroked himself roughly, once, twice, before remembering he still had a job to do.

Typing one handed was not ideal. Whatever. He’d make do.

_did you cum?_

Alex shook his head.

_just opened yourself up for me?_

“Just wanted you,” he said, and Ronan believed him. He could believe anything right now.

_fuck that’s so hot_

_show me_

Alex dropped face down onto the bed and spread himself open with both hands. His hole was smooth, freshly shaven and already slick with lube. The slight gape to it made Ronan’s cock throb. If he was there he’d kiss the knuckles on Alex’s hands before replacing them with his own. If he was there he’d slip a finger into that hole the way Alex was doing right now, tease him with the tip til he got needy enough to rock back on Ronan’s hand. If he was there he’d slide the head of his cock against that tight hungry rim, circling around before feeding it, and the whole time he’d be praying Alex’s name—

But he wasn’t there. He had to remember that.

_think you’re ready for it?_

Alex, who’d by now worked three fingers inside and was fucking himself at a steady rhythm, groaned in response, face muffled by the sheets. He let his fingers fall away and spread himself again for Ronan’s hungry eyes. He was breathing heavily, cock hard and straining against the sheets despite him barely touching it. He looked desperate and perfect and like he’d been pulled straight out of Ronan’s filthiest dreams.

_yeah that’s it_

_do it_

He watched as Alex lubed up the toy and brought it to his rim, watched as his hole slowly swallowed it inch by inch. The angle was awkward. Alex couldn’t fuck himself fully while lying on his stomach (Ronan thought, _if I was there_ ) but he still made a real go of it, gasping with each thrust, white-knuckling the bed sheet. He was beautiful and doing so good for Ronan and Ronan told him that too. Couldn’t help himself. He could see the effect it was having on Alex, the bitten off moans he made any time he read the screen. Alex _liked_ the praise and Ronan wanted him to have it, have everything.

_does it feel good?_

“Yes,” Alex said, his voice a breathless sigh.

_but you want more, don’t you?_

“I’m good.”

_cmon_

“I… _fuck…_ I mean it.”

_don’t be a stubborn bastard_

Alex let out a laugh that then turned into a long, drawn out moan. Ronan wanted to bottle that sound up and carry it everywhere. He jerked himself off, quicker, harder, imagining it was Alex’s hand instead.

“Okay. You win. Just…You mind if I turn over?”

 _If I was there I’d want to see your face. If I was there I’d kiss you_ —

 _do it_ , Ronan said. _wanna get you off so bad_

“Shit.” Alex rolled over onto his back. “You can’t say stuff like that.”

_why not_

“Because—” He gasped as he worked the dildo back inside himself. “This is supposed to be about you. You’re making…oh god…you’re making me look bad.”

_to who_

Alex didn’t answer, too caught up in the quick rhythm he’d set. It occurred to Ronan a beat too late that he was making Alex look bad to himself, which was _madness._ Did Alex really think Ronan wasn’t enjoying this just as much as him? That Ronan wasn’t right there on the edge because of him?

_jesus alex_

_been so fucking good for me_

_want you to touch your dick now_

_cum for me_

Alex looked at the laptop seconds delayed and let out a breathless, “Okay.”

He wrapped one hand around his dick while the other continued thrusting the dildo, and Ronan could tell he was hitting his prostate from the desperate sounds he was making. Ronan could shut his eyes and come from that alone but he didn’t. He needed to see, needed to feel like he was in the room, not just a passive observer.

 _How would you do it? If you could fuck me_ —

Alex rocked his hips down against the toy, taking it all the way to the base. A high whine escaped his throat and Ronan was right there in the room holding him, touching him, feeling him fall apart in his arms.

He watched eagerly as Alex jerked himself, again, again, before arching his back and coming all over his stomach.

And Ronan was right on the edge too. He grabbed his discarded bath towel off the floor and fucked his fist — he was right there — just needed something, a little more—

Alex ran his fingers over the mess on his stomach. He brought them to his mouth and sucked them clean.

“Fuck,” Ronan gasped, and spilled all over the towel.

He flopped his head back against the pillows, heart racing.

Intense didn’t begin to cover it.

He wiped his hands off on the towel — he’d have to do the laundry tomorrow while Gansey was in class; he hadn’t been kidding when he’d called Gansey a prude — and then reached for the laptop and his discarded headphones.

“So,” Alex was saying when Ronan tuned back in. He sounded just as breathless as Ronan felt. “That was good, right?”

“Fucking Christ,” Ronan whispered, before reality set in once again and he realized he was alone.

 _fucking christ_ , he typed.

Alex smile cheerily. Ronan would start wars and burn cities for that true smile, elastic and amiable. If he was there right now then this was the point when he’d pull Alex towards him and sink into him. It was one of the best parts of sex, the easy intimacy that came afterwards. Guards lowered, bodies merged, vulnerability attainable in the dark.

But Ronan wasn’t there. He was alone and Alex was hundreds, maybe even thousands, of miles away in some unknown destination.

None of this was real.

“I should go,” Alex said. “I don’t want you getting charged any more. But, hey, if you’re up for doing this again…”

_name a time?_

“Right.” He smile softened. Ronan looked his fill, taking what he could before it was gone. “You know where to find me.”

*

“Ease off the clutch.”

“Got it.”

“Slowly.”

“No shit.”

“If it’s so obvious, stop screwing around and do it.”

Adam released the parking brake, shifted into first gear and slowly began pulling off the clutch.

“Foot on the gas. Watch for the bite point,” Ronan instructed. And then, because he had an idea by now of how Adam’s mind worked, “Don’t overthink it, man. Just feel it out.”

“How can I go wrong with that advice?” Adam deadpanned, but he followed Ronan’s directions to a tee and got the car rolling forwards. The smile on his face was decidedly pleased and annoyingly infectious. Ronan drummed his hands against his cheeks before he could give himself away.

He’d picked Adam up a few blocks away from campus, grabbed burgers and milkshakes from the nearest drive-thru and then circled around until finding an empty parking lot. Now the food was dusted off, their positions had switched and Adam was making his first attempt at driving stick.

Ronan privately felt it was only right that Adam learn the ropes in his car; he looked right behind the wheel, self-assured and focused, like someone who belonged there.

And he was good at driving, just like Ronan had suspected. Not too cocky but not jittery and fearful either. Ronan directed him into second gear, watched intently as one hand settled on the stick shift and the other rested easily against the wheel.

He had nice hands. Ronan hadn’t noticed that before but here, alone together in the boxed space of the car, evening gloom pressing in on them, it was very hard not to. They made Ronan think of Alex’s hands, fine-boned and lovely. Then again, everything made Ronan think of Alex. One track mind did not begin to cover it.

He wondered what Alex was doing right now. Out of class by now, surely. Maybe lounging around at home in one of his sweaters, plants on the windowsill, books in his lap. Or maybe out somewhere with friends. That was a nicer thought. Ronan wanted to believe that Alex wasn’t as lonely as he’d made himself out to be.

Adam made circles around the parking lot, picking up speed each time. He shot Ronan a sideways victory glance but Ronan wasn’t finished with him yet.

“Third gear,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Adam attempted to shift; the car spasmed violently and stalled.

“For the love of fuck,” Ronan swore, and then kept going. Adam did not attempt to intervene or plead his case. He sat still and watched as Ronan ran his course, and Ronan felt those eyes weighing heavily on him. He did not think he was imagining the way they kept drifting to his lips.

“Are you finished?” Adam asked once Ronan fell silent.

“Depends. You gonna treat my boy with the respect he deserves?”

“I’ll do my best.” Adam reached for the stick shift. “But you might have to teach me that lesson again.”

Ronan stared out the windshield and thought to himself, _what the fuck._

He couldn’t sit in this car with Adam when he had nothing else to focus on. He huffed out a breath and said, “Third gear. C’mon. Keep it moving, Parrish.”

Adam managed the shift to third gear without stalling this time. Soon he was doing circles around the parking lot with enough expertise that Ronan felt he was ready for the road. He told him, “Last one, then take a left.”

“Onto the street?”

“You chicken out now, you’ll never do it.”

“Okay.” Adam was no chicken. He took a left.

They kept going like that for who knows how long, Ronan giving out instructions and Adam following with no hesitation. It was not at all how he’d expected these impromptu lessons to go. He’d tried teaching Gansey how to drive stick back in high school with minimal success and multiple shouting matches, and if Ronan were being honest he’d say his lack of patience had had just as much an effect on the outcome as Gansey’s ineptitude. But Adam was a quick study; he handled the corrections with grace and didn’t take Ronan’s outbursts at face value. Seemed amused by them, even. Impressed.

It was on the downshift when Adam fucked it up again. The car ground to a sudden halt at a set of lights and Adam swore violently before tipping his head back. Ronan didn’t go off on one this time; no point kicking a man when he was already down.

“Easy, Parrish,” Ronan said. “You got this.”

Adam turned and met his gaze, and Ronan felt a spasm of heat shock through him. He did not think he was imagining the charge in the air between them.

“Handbrake,” he said.

Adam applied the handbrake without breaking eye contact.

“Put the stick in neutral.”

Adam put the stick in neutral. He restarted the engine and pressed his foot on the clutch.

“You gotta shift it.”

Adam tried to shift. The car stalled.

“Shit,” he said.

“It’s fine. You’re freaking out, man. Just do it again.”

Up ahead, the lights turned amber. Ronan watched as Adam went through the motions once more, but it was clear he’d worked himself into a minor tizzy. Ronan leaned over instinctively and guided Adam’s hand from neutral to first. Adam’s breath hitched. His foot stilled on the clutch.

“Ease it off. Slowly,” Ronan said, and thank fuck his lack of composure did not show itself in his voice.

He left his hand there until Adam was driving again, then pulled away before it could get awkward. As they looped around and passed by the Harvard campus, Ronan said, “Think you can make it home from here?”

Adam nodded and set off on course.

He’d never been to Adam’s apartment before. Ronan wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but the side street they pulled up on wasn’t the worst. It was nothing to write home about, a lot shabbier than Gansey’s luxury apartment accommodation, but Ronan did not feel like he was at risk of being mugged here, so that was something. And it was still very much Cambridge, red bricks for miles and trees lining the street.

Ronan didn’t know a whole lot about money, but he figured a library salary on its own couldn’t account for this. Maybe Gansey was right. Maybe Adam _was_ middle-class after all and his parents were helping him pave his way. Maybe his dad worked in sales and his mom taught preschoolers. Maybe his _mom_ worked in sales and his _dad_ taught preschoolers; Ronan made a note to examine his biases.

Adam parked the car and killed the engine. He turned towards Ronan with hooded eyes and Ronan knew he wasn’t imagining it this time. His dick was two steps ahead of his brain, reacting like Adam had already touched him.

“Thanks,” Adam said. “That was a…surprisingly not shitty experience.”

“You got to work a sports car for your first time. Of course it wasn’t shitty.”

There was that smile again, blink and you’ll miss it, so different from his usual serious disposition. What would it take to get Adam smiling so hard he couldn’t stop?

“That’s true. I just meant, the company wasn’t all bad either.”

Ronan didn’t know what to say. He settled for a grunt of acknowledgement, one he hoped conveyed _right back at you._

Adam watched Ronan with measured intent. “I’m just over there,” he pointed out his building, “Studio flat. No roommates.”

“You should move in with Gansey. He’s always looking for someone to mother hen.”

“What?” His brows furrowed. “Oh. No way. I like the no roommate thing. Suits me.”

“Yeah?”

This was the natural end to their conversation; Adam unclipped his seatbelt and wavered. He seemed to be weighing something on his mind, and when he finally spoke each word felt deliberate.

“No roommates. So. If you wanted to…you could come upstairs.”

Ronan’s throat went dry. There was no way in hell around it: this was Adam coming onto him plain as day. He felt the truth of it buzzing through him, _Adam Parrish wants me_ , and then his brain crashed as he considered the second half of that equation. Did he want Adam Parrish?

It should’ve been simple to answer. It was not. Having Adam did not naturally succeed wanting Adam. There were other important variables to consider, like _is it worth it when he lives eight hours away_ and _is it worth it when he’s probably only in it for sex_ and _is it worth it when you’re hung up on someone else?_

That was the real issue, when it came down to it. Ronan could handle long distance and he could handle jumping in without knowing where he stood, but he could not handle disloyalty. Didn’t matter if the connection with Alex was real or not. Didn’t matter if he was fucking delusional. He’d be lying to himself and lying to Adam and Ronan didn’t do that. He couldn’t sleep with Adam with Alex in the picture. It would never work.

Ronan tipped his head up to the ceiling. Said, “I’m hitting the road first thing tomorrow.”

It was not the most obvious of rejections, but Adam was smart enough to get the message.

“Right. Sorry. I, uh. I wasn’t thinking.”

“You’re good, man.”

He felt like a jackass. As Adam climbed out of the car and gently shut the door behind him, Ronan felt like the world’s biggest jackass. He groaned and ran his hands over his face. At least he’d given himself an excuse to head home. At least he wouldn’t have to hang around up here any longer and deal with the awkwardness any time Adam was in the same room as him.

Fuck.

There was a tap at the driver’s window and Ronan startled. He turned around and saw Adam hovering on the sidewalk. _Fuck_. Ronan started the engine and leaned over to roll the driver’s window down.

“I just realized: this is yours. I had it in my pocket the whole time. Forgot all about it.”

Ronan noticed, then, the book in Adam’s hands. He felt even more like a jackass than he had two seconds ago.

“You said the other night you hadn’t read this one, which is weird, by the way,” Adam said. “I mean, you read his other stuff but you didn’t read his most popular work? Who does that?”

“What was it you called me again? Pretentious?”

Adam rolled his eyes. If he was upset about what had just passed, he wasn’t showing it.

“Well, I won’t have that,” he said and held out the book. It was Seneca. _Letters from a Stoic_. “Take it. I’ve got another copy upstairs.”

Ronan leaned over to accept the book as Adam leaned through the window to pass it over. It looked relatively new and barely touched, and Ronan wondered if Adam had gone out and bought it especially for him. It was a touching thought, hard to swallow now in light of the night’s end.

“Thanks,” he said. He took the book out of Adam’s outstretched palm—

And froze.

That was…no.

Ronan blinked so the image would fade.

Blink and fade.

Blink.

“Anytime,” Adam was saying now, oblivious.

It wasn’t fading.

“Where’d you get the scar from?” Ronan asked.

“What?”

“The scar on your palm.”

“Oh.” Adam looked down at his palm like he hadn’t seen it before. “It was…God, I don’t remember. Cut it on some glass, I think.”

“Huh.” Ronan could not look at him. There was no hiding the slow dawning horror on his face.

“Well, I should let you go,” Adam said, and then he pulled back from the window like nothing momentous had just happened, like the whole world had not just imploded on itself. “Night, Lynch.”

Ronan waited until he was all the way across the street and inside the building before gritting out, “Fuck!”

There had to be another explanation (but he knew there wasn’t). Adam Parrish and Alex Wilde could not be the same person (but he knew they were). None of this made the slightest bit of sense (but he knew, if he looked for an explanation, he’d find it).

What the _fuck_ had Ronan done?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH NOOO NOT HIS HANDS  
> WHO COULD HAVE POSSIBLY SEEN THIS ONE COMING? :D


	6. Chapter 6

Greywaren did not show up for Saturday’s livestream.

This was fine. Nothing to worry about. He’d been absent before; he had an offline life of his own; there were more important things in his world than Adam’s shows. It was reassuring, in fact, to know that this was the case. As much as Adam relied on his regulars to keep his bank balance steady, he didn’t much like the thought of being the center of their universe.

So it was fine. Totally fine. Adam concluded his stream with all the usual enthusiasm, and then he set Alex aside and went to his other job and attended class and studied and hung out with Gansey, and at no point did Adam lose sleep over it. He had other topics to keep him up at night — like money, like the LSAT, like Ronan Lynch.

Ronan in particular was a persistent presence in Adam’s thoughts. Adam had analyzed last week’s driving lesson from all angles by this point. He’d exhausted himself playing their conversations over and over again in his head, reliving the sensation of Ronan’s hand on his, second guessing all his assumptions.

Maybe he’d been wrong about Ronan’s interest in him. Adam didn’t think he was, but he had to admit it was a possibility. Ronan was intense, after all. Perhaps all those signs Adam had taken to indicate attraction — the eye contact, the focused attention, the easy confidence with which he’d leaned over and _touched_ Adam — were just how Ronan acted around anyone he didn’t hate.

Or maybe he _was_ interested, but there were external factors keeping him from acting on it. Had Adam come on too strong? Not strong enough? Had he said something off-putting, looked off-putting, smelled off-putting?

Was Ronan not out to his friends? Was he not out to himself?

Was there someone else?

It didn’t matter in the end. The result was the same no matter what the reason behind it. But Adam hated not knowing. He wanted to understand where he’d gone wrong, if the fault lied with him or if it’d been out of his hands entirely.

This drive to make sense of past events was not new. Back when he’d still lived in the trailer, Adam had taken to analyzing each of his father’s outbursts, so sure that there was a hidden code to be cracked that would make sense once and for all of the violence. If Adam could say the right things, press all the right buttons, then perhaps he could avoid being hit.

It had rarely worked out that way — Robert Parrish was erratic — but Adam’s deductive skills had proven useful once he’d made it into the local private school. Each social faux pass provided new data for Adam to learn from. His classmates became models for Adam to mirror himself after. This was his talent, observing. The more he studied his mistakes and the behavioral patterns of his peers, the better Adam could adapt.

He didn’t know how to adapt when he was with Ronan. More and more often, Adam didn’t want to.

Maybe that was the problem then, he reflected, as he stared at the ceiling one night and waited for sleep to catch up on him. Maybe Ronan had turned him down because Adam had revealed too much of himself. And really, who could blame Ronan for that?

As the days passed by and Saturday rolled back around, Adam willed himself to put Ronan out of his mind. It wasn’t like it would’ve worked long-term with him, anyway. You couldn’t date with a job like Adam’s.

He spent the afternoon camped out at his tiny kitchen table finishing up an essay and then completing the assigned reading for next week. He took careful and meticulous notes, his mind wiped clean of everything besides the words on the page and where they could get him. This was all he needed, his quiet apartment and his roaring dreams. Everything else was just distraction.

When the clock hit six thirty, Adam made himself a quick dinner before tidying up and heading for the shower. Only then under the hot spray, mere hours away from his livestream, did he allow himself to think again about Greywaren.

It was fine that he hadn’t showed up last weekend. He’d be here tonight, that was what mattered, and he’d want to talk to Adam. He might even try and book another private show.

The thought of that made Adam’s heart pound even though it shouldn’t have. It was his job and he was used to performing and it didn’t mean anything, except that Greywaren was different from everybody else and Adam could no longer deny that anymore. He _liked_ Greywaren. He was funny and thoughtful and surprising, and Adam had broken his own rule and gotten attached.

And at least Adam knew where he stood with that one. At least he knew that Greywaren liked him back. It felt comforting, in light of Ronan’s rejection, to know that someone out there was interested in Adam, wanted Adam, cared about making Adam feel good. It felt comforting to know that he was exactly what Greywaren was paying for, that he was enough.

It was the illusion of intimacy without the terror of the real deal. Exchanging secrets while holding the important cards close to their chests. In Greywaren’s eyes he was neither Alex _nor_ Adam but someone else altogether, something greater than the sum of all his parts.

So as Adam got ready for the livestream, he did so with Greywaren in mind. What would Greywaren be eager to see? What would turn him on? How could Adam single him out without calling attention to the fact that he was playing favorites?

He looked out the toy he’d used during their private show and set it down on the bed. An innocuous gesture, a wink to the camera, _this is for you._

He thought of how Greywaren might respond — bitten off curses, shameless exhilaration, _so fucking good for me —_ and breathed deeply through his nose. It was Ronan’s voice he heard in his head, but that was not important. Ronan wasn’t important, not now.

At 8:59, Adam bit back the last of his nerves and logged on.

He needn’t have worried though; Greywaren was a no-show once again.

Adam scanned the list of names again, again, as disappointment threatened to crush him. _He’s running late_ , Adam told himself (but he knew this wasn’t true). _He’s on vacation_ , Adam reconsidered (but he knew if this were the case, Greywaren would’ve said something). _He’s sick,_ Adam tried once more (but he knew that was a poor excuse if he’d ever heard one).

By the end of the night, Adam had made it through the denial stage and skipped straight to cold acceptance. Greywaren wasn’t here because he didn’t want to be. Adam could spend all week analyzing the events of the private show, questioning where he’d gone wrong, but none of it would change the facts. This was another rejection, a clean cut end to their transactional arrangement.

Adam told himself he was fine with that.

He didn’t get much sleep.

*

“What are your plans for spring break?”

Adam looked at Gansey, looked down meaningfully at the textbook on his lap, and then looked back at Gansey.

“Really? The whole time?”

Not entirely. Holidays weren’t just for studying; they were for capitalizing on his free time too. Extra pay, extra shifts.

Adam had already been pulling extra shifts this last week. He’d stayed up till 3AM the other night talking to a regular who was paying him per minute. It was good money, enough to make up for the sudden hole in his wallet Greywaren’s absence had left him with, but it hadn’t been good fun. The guy had been a real creep, three times Adam’s age and blatantly getting off on that. He’d wanted Adam to play at being naive, and Adam had complied even though it’d made him feel sick with himself.

Afterwards Adam had gone for a walk to clear his head and just…detached. He’d ended up wandering eight blocks away from the apartment. He still couldn’t remember how he’d got that far.

“What’s the alternative?” he asked Gansey, and watched as Gansey tipped his head up to the ceiling. He was lying on his back on the floor of his apartment, a cardboard replica of a warehouse in his hands. Adam hadn’t asked what it was.

“I thought you might be heading home for the week,” Gansey said.

Adam, dodging the question with practiced ease, asked, “Are you?”

“Only for a night or two. My mom’s got another one of her tea parties planned and I’m not allowed to miss it this time. She says the photo ops always reflect better on her when the whole family’s involved.”

“Sounds like a hoot.”

“That’s one way of putting it.” Gansey set the mini warehouse down and looked back over at Adam with a rueful smile. “Family for you, right?”

“Right.”

“I love them, but I swear to god…”

“They’re a lot to handle sometimes.”

Gansey pointed at Adam in agreement. It was a politician’s gesture from a politician’s son, at once effortlessly charming and amusing. Gansey may have gone to great pains to set himself apart from his elite family, but they still had the same noble blood running through their veins.

“So you’re not heading home then?” he asked again, and Adam shook his head.

“My mom gets crazy this time of year. With renovating the place, you know? I won’t get a minute’s peace to study.”

Gansey nodded along in sympathy. He wouldn’t probe any further. He never did. He always took Adam’s fabrications at face value.

They weren’t total lies, not exactly. They were bits and pieces of truth that Adam had woven together from various sources — passing acquaintances, high school classmates, TV scenes. He’d been sharing these little snippets of backstory with Gansey for months now and he’d never once claimed anything outrageous, just enough to paint a cosy picture. His parents were happily married and owned a country house in Maryland. His mother’s de-stress method of choice was interior decorating. His father collected signed baseball gloves. They were both proud of Adam’s accomplishments, although they still wished he’d gone the pre-med route.

When he was twelve years old, he’d fallen off the tire swing at the bottom of the yard and hit the side of his head off a rock. Single-sided deafness, nothing to be done for it. His father had driven him to the hospital and overseen his recovery. Learned ASL alongside Adam. Really committed to making Adam’s life simpler.

“He sounds like a wonderful man,” Gansey had said when Adam relayed this story to him. Adam had smiled sadly in response.

“Yeah,” he’d said, hands trembling in his pockets. “He really is.”

“You know,” Gansey said now, startling Adam back to the present, “I’m heading to Ronan’s once my family’s had enough of me. The Barns — that’s what he calls it.”

“Oh?”

“It’s a beautiful place, truly. You won’t have seen anything like it before. All these astoundingly huge barns, fruit trees of every kind, green fields for miles. It’s like something out of a fairytale.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Yep.” Gansey’s gaze turned intent, like a senator gearing up to deliver his knockout pitch. “You should come with me.”

Adam stared at Gansey flatly. He counted to five in his head, then said, “Why?”

“Why not?”

“That’s not — You can’t just invite me to another person’s house.”

“It’s Ronan’s house,” Gansey said, like this made any material difference.

“Yeah, Ronanis a person, last I checked.”

“All I mean is, he likes you.”

Adam felt his stomach drop out of his chest. What did Gansey know about that? Had Ronan talked to Gansey about him? Had Ronan told Gansey about the driving lesson, the come-on, the pathetic return with the book?

God, Adam never should’ve given him that book. What had he been thinking? He _hadn’t_ been thinking, that was the problem. He could never think straight around Ronan.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Adam asked carefully.

“Have you met Ronan? He’s not what you’d call easily impressed.” Gansey rolled his eyes, though they were brimming with affection. “But if he decides you’re a friend, well, that’s a big deal to him. He’ll want you around, trust me.”

Adam relaxed back into his seat. Gansey thought Ronan and him were _friends_ , okay. No need to panic.

“Don’t you think you should talk to him about this first?”

“I will, don’t worry about it. But I already know he’ll say yes.”

“I don’t know, Gansey.”

“You’ll be doing us a favor,” Gansey insisted. “That house is too big for just two people.”

“I’ve got to work.”

“We’ll drive down on Monday. That way you won’t miss a shift.”

Adam’s shifts happened whatever day he chose, but it wasn’t like Gansey could know that.

He tried to picture seeing Ronan again but he came up short. There was no way that was happening. Absolutely not. No way could he face Ronan after what happened last time.

But Adam knew he didn’t have a choice, at least not where facing Ronan was concerned. Ronan was a constant in Gansey’s life and there was no getting away from that. They’d have to see each other eventually, hang out together, save face for Gansey’s sake.

What a mess.

Gansey was still watching Adam with a brow raised, so Adam sighed and said, “I’ll think about it.” Which he would. Didn’t mean his answer would ever change.

Gansey grinned and said, “I’ll text him right now.”

Adam turned his attention back to his textbook but there was an itch under his skin now. The words on the page blurred together, making studying impossible. He was lying to Gansey about so many things and now he’d have to lie about this too. What had he done? He never should’ve said anything to Ronan. He should’ve let the sexual tension sit unaddressed.

But the past was in the past and there was no changing it now. All Adam could do was pretend it hadn’t happened.

*

Adam’s life continued much like it always used to. There was work to put up with and school to attend and studying to go ahead on and sleep to attempt. During rare moments of free time, there was Gansey to hang out with too. It was work, study, school, sometimes sleep, and occasionally Gansey. Work, study, school, sleep, Gansey.

Work.

Study.

School.

Sleep.

Gansey.

Had the pattern always been this predictable? Had it always felt so lacking?

What did it matter? It was what needed to be done.

Gansey, predictably, did not let the spring break matters drop. He brought it up to Adam at every opportunity, raving about how fun it would be, how exciting, how wonderful for the three of them to spend time together. He wrote a list of ‘cool things to do’ (which mostly boiled down to ‘hike through the woods’). He even showed Adam pictures of the Barns (with Ronan’s permission, don’t worry about that) and artsy polaroids of the town they’d gone to high school in.

“Henrietta,” Gansey announced, a look of pure awe in his eyes. “I miss it like crazy.”

It didn’t look like anything special to Adam. It was practically identical to his own rural hometown, right down to the Appalachian mountains in the distance. But he couldn’t say that; he’d grown up in Maryland, to Gansey’s knowledge.

The more Gansey talked about the plan, the less patient Adam became. Was he doing this because he pitied Adam? Did he think Adam had no other friends and would be lost without him for a week? Was Adam’s life really so sad and wretched that Gansey felt compelled to stage an intervention?

Well, he wasn’t wrong, but that was besides the point. Adam didn’t need his help.

As the holiday drew closer, Adam found his attention drifting more and more from the present moment. He couldn’t stomach listening to his classmates boast about their own spring break plans, pretending to care about fancy internships and trips to the Bahamas. He wanted to shut down, shut them out, shut everything out, all the stress and alienation and financial woes.

He was drowning beneath the weight of it all but he didn’t want to struggle to the surface; he just wanted to slip beneath the currents and let the waves do with him what they would.

Letting go was a frightening yet alluring prospect. Adam was sick of having to be so tirelessly in control.

He put up with work. He attended school. He got on with studying and attempted to sleep. He made time for Gansey, then slipped away in the moments between.

The pattern finally broke when he found Greywaren’s Twitter account.

Adam stared at the screen in shock. He’d stopped checking Alex’s Twitter followers a long time ago, had only looked now out of boredom. He hadn’t really expected Greywaren to be one of them.

But there he was. _greywaren99_. No way was that a coincidence.

Adam clicked on his account. He’d joined in April 2015 and had a whopping total of fifteen followers. His profile picture was a huge black bird perched on top of a fence. No name, no age, no description. Latest activity: a retweet on January 29th of a funny TikTok video.

Reading his tweets was crossing a line. Right? Adam wasn’t a stalker.

Then again, Greywaren was the one who’d paid Adam to make porn of himself. If there _was_ a line, they’d somersaulted over it at the get go.

Adam began scrolling—

“Hey, Parrish!”

And promptly locked his phone.

He looked up. Henry Cheng was waving from the other side of the coffee shop. Adam smiled politely and Henry immediately made a bid for his table.

“Long time no see, my friend!” he said, coming to a stop by Adam’s chair. His friend, a short hipster woman wearing at least four mismatched layers of clothing, flanked him on the other side.

“We had a lecture together this morning,” Adam said.

“Exactly my point. Not a prime catch-up environment, is it?” He turned to his friend. “This here is Adam Parrish, a cutthroat lawyer in the making. Parrish, you remember the Marvelous Miss Sargent, don’t you?”

Adam and ‘Miss Sargent’ scrutinized one another. She was pretty but the slight curl to her lips read as vaguely unamused. Adam tried to place her and came up short. He was sure he’d remember her if he’d seen her before. He was good with faces.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve met before.”

“No? What about Gansey’s party?” Henry prompted, and the woman’s brows furrowed. If she’d looked vaguely unamused before, she looked distinctly hostile now.

“Really? Another one of Gansey’s friends?” she said.

Suddenly it clicked. “You’re the waitress, right?” Adam said. Gansey had been angsting over their failed encounter for weeks. Adam struggled to produce her name. “Was it Blue?”

“Blue Sargent.” Blue said this like a challenge. “And I’m not just a waitress.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you.” He glanced at Henry, brows raised skeptically. “I didn’t realize you guys were friends.”

“You know me. Many friends in many high places. Speaking of,” Henry turned to Blue, “I believe I just spotted my weed guy.”

He was off before either of them could process it, leaving a well of awkward silence in his wake.

“So,” Blue broke it first, “are you friend friends with Gansey, or were you just at his party for the hell of it?”

“He’s my best friend.”

“Wow.”

The urge to defend Gansey was instinctual, but Adam knew it was misguided here. He’d heard the story from Gansey’s mouth and it was obvious Gansey had been in the wrong. Blue had every reason to be upset.

“Look,” he said, “I know you must think he’s an asshole—”

“He is.”

“He doesn’t mean to be. He’s stupid about money.”

“And you aren’t?”

Adam felt the urge to laugh. How far he’d come, to now blend in among the gilded elite. What a brilliant pretender Adam Parrish was.

“Not like he is,” Adam replied.

Blue looked him over with an assessing gaze. Some of the hostility faded from her face. It felt like an achievement to meet this stranger’s approval. No wonder Gansey was so determined to make amends.

“It doesn’t matter if he didn’t mean it,” she said. “That doesn’t make it any less skeevy for him to try and pick me up the way he did.”

“In his defence, he really wasn’t trying to hit on you.”

“I mean, I’m not a prostitute. If I like someone, I’ll spend time with them for free.”

Something uneasy settled in Adam’s stomach. His focus drifted to the phone still in his hand.

“I get that,” he said faintly. Henry returned before Blue could say anything more.

“All sorted. Nothing illegal to see here,” he announced with a beaming smile. He looked at Blue. “Ready to go?”

“I’ll see you around, Adam,” Blue said, and Adam smiled at them and watched them leave.

He unlocked his phone and stared in consideration at Greywaren’s profile picture, mind racing to form ideas. He couldn’t do what he was thinking of doing. He _shouldn’t_ do it. It was dangerous and stupid and desperate. Better to leave the past in the past.

_If I like someone, I’ll spend time with them for free._

Just one message. If he didn’t answer, fine. Adam could take a hint.

Before he could talk himself out of it, Adam clicked the message icon, searched Greywaren up and typed, _hey so I hope this isn’t weird, no pressure to respond, but I meant it when I said I liked talking to you. If you ever wanna chat as friends, hmu._

*

Later that night, Adam got a call from Ronan Lynch.

“Lynch,” Adam said, all casual.

“Parrish,” Ronan said, all casual. He coughed into the microphone, cleared his throat, then: “I need to talk to you.”

“Okay?”

“It’s. Fuck. I don’t know where to start.”

“Is this about that text?”

“What? Wait. You _know_ about that?”

“Why wouldn’t I know? I was right there when Gansey sent it.”

“Gansey—? Right. Gansey’s text.”

Adam frowned at his bedroom wall. What was this?

“Look, it was Gansey’s idea,” he said. “I told him not to but you know how he is. He never listens. I didn’t just invite myself along—”

“Jesus, chill the fuck out,” Ronan said, “I don’t care if you come with him.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. What, you think I’ve been throwing a shit fit over this the whole time? I’m not that territorial, man.”

“But it’s your house.”

“And?”

“Won’t it be…?”

“What?”

“Nothing.” If Ronan wasn’t addressing the awkwardness, neither was Adam. “It’s fine.”

“All right.” Another throat clear. “So, if you wanna come along, whatever. Gansey’ll like that.”

 _What about you?_ Adam wanted to say. _Would you like that?_

“Okay,” Adam said.

“I mean it. He’s like, fucking obsessed with you or something. So just do him a favor and do what he asks, all right?”

“All right,” Adam said, and he knew this time he meant it. “So what did you want to talk about?”

“What?”

“You said you needed to talk to me.”

“Oh. Shit. No, we’re good now.”

“Are we?”

“Yeah. Listen, I’ll see you around, all right?” Ronan said.

“See you around,” Adam replied.

The line went dead.

Adam stared at the phone blankly, half expecting it to ring again. He couldn’t shake the feeling that him and Ronan were still on two very different pages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooo i know this is probably not the big dramatic showdown you guys had in mind. i promise there's more exciting stuff on the way but for now: hope you didn't mind this more introspective chapter!!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so there are some brief references to substance abuse, suicide attempts + overdoses in this chapter. it's nothing graphic but i wanna give you guys a heads up just in case

_hey so I hope this isn’t weird, no pressure to respond, but I meant it when I said I liked talking to you. If you ever wanna chat as friends, hmu._

Ronan’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. He’d been sitting on the message all week and he still had no idea what to say. What could possibly fix this?

_Parrish, I know it’s you. Lynch here. Let’s talk._

_Don’t freak out but I’m Ronan Lynch._

_I gotta tell you something, man. I know your name’s not Alex._

_You’re Adam Parrish and I’m Ronan Lynch. Small fucking world, right?_

He groaned and closed the tab. He couldn’t do it. Adam was going to hate him the minute he found out. Ronan had seen how Adam could be, so goddamn secretive and repressed, so stubbornly insistent on treating all his relationships like sets of balancing scales. There were so many aspects of this clusterfuck of a situation that would set him off, and Ronan knew there was no getting around it when the truth came out.

He’d spent weeks considering all the potential ways this fight could go down: Adam getting angry about being rejected for his own persona; Adam getting angry about the money and attempting to pay Ronan back every penny Greywaren had spent on him; Adam getting angry about the voyeuristic nature of their relationship and cutting all ties with Ronan; Adam getting angry about his cover being blown and cutting all ties with Gansey _and_ Ronan.

Unlimited possibilities, none of them appealing.

And now Adam was on his way down here. Right now. With Gansey. Ronan should’ve put his foot down on this one. He should’ve told Gansey to fuck off and stay in Cambridge for the week. But he wanted Gansey here and he wanted Gansey happy and Adam made Gansey happy, so Ronan had gone along with it. And maybe, if he was being honest with himself, he wanted Adam here too.

Okay, no maybes about it. He did want Adam here. It’d been over three weeks since he’d cut off contact with ‘Alex’ and Ronan had _missed_ him, damn it. Not the porn — the thought of watching Alex’s streams and videos now, knowing that the guy behind the mask was one of his own friends, made Ronan feel disgustingly sleazy — but the conversations, the company, the knowledge that someone out there got it.

How much of that had been real? How the hell should Ronan know? So much of Alex sat at odds with what he knew of Adam (the casual wardrobe, the warm and playful demeanor, the goddamn accent) that Ronan had no way of telling where the truth ended and fabrications began. All Ronan knew was that, for a little while back there, he’d felt something close to settled, like Alex — _Adam_ — had burrowed his way right down to the marrow and sucked out some of the poison.

Now all Ronan felt was restless. Restless and ashamed, a brutal combination that almost always led to trouble. Chasing K’s souped-up Mitsu down the streets, drinking till he blacked out, connecting his fist with some asshole’s face kind of trouble. He’d kept it together this time but it hadn’t been easy. He’d been warding off his worst impulses for weeks.

Maybe it would turn out fine. Maybe if he talked to Adam face to face, he’d find the right words to smooth things over.

Likely story.

Ronan shut the laptop over and climbed upstairs. He’d fixed up Declan’s and Matthew’s old rooms for Gansey and Adam to sleep in, and he gave them both a quick glance over now just for something to do. They weren’t in perfect shape but they looked decent enough. Mostly clean. Tidy. Unused, like stock rooms. Ghost rooms.

Gansey knew what to expect. He’d been here to visit plenty of times since Ronan had taken charge of the upkeep. But Adam? What did he think this place was? What had Gansey told him about Ronan’s life?

Ronan chewed at his wristbands then stopped himself when he realized he was doing it. There was nothing to be nervous about. Shit would happen how it happened. It always did.

He grabbed his sketchbook from his bedroom drawer and attempted some basic warm-ups while he waited. His art had fallen by the wayside a long while ago, but these last few weeks he’d slowly been getting back into the habit. It was the only thing keeping him sane, or at least distracted.

Unsurprisingly, Adam haunted these pages too.

Ronan sketched out snapshots — elegant hands, crooked slope of a nose, narrowed eyes that took in everything and gave away little in return — until his wrist started to cramp. And still the hours ticked by and the quiet loomed thick like fog until finally, _finally,_ two hours behind schedule, headlights shone through the front windows and Gansey’s obscenely orange Camaro pulled up in the driveway.

Ronan hastily put the book away and gave himself no time to hesitate before heading outside. The car, affectionately dubbed the Pig, stuttered to a stop just as he made it onto the porch. He threw himself down the steps to meet them.

“I always forget,” Gansey said as he climbed out the driver’s side, “what a vision this place is.”

It was such a Gansey-like statement to make, more grand declaration than opinion. Here were the facts, presented with such wild enthusiasm that one had no choice but to listen.

“What took you so long?” Ronan asked. “I could’ve been halfway to California by now.”

“We weren’t that slow.”

“Are you kidding me? Global warming’s been reversed. There’s a polar bear in the White House now.”

Gansey rolled his eyes. “Let’s just say we had a very momentous journey.”

“The Pig broke down,” Adam translated, shutting the passenger door behind him. “Twice.”

He sounded like himself, which was to say, not like Alex. No drawling vowels, no traces of that honeyed Appalachian accent. Where had he picked it up in the first place? Was Adam just that talented of an actor?

Ronan caught himself before he could look up. He rounded the rear of the car and popped the trunk open as he said, “Man, you need to trade this thing in.” He didn’t mean it; the Pig was a sexy car, a real classic, and once it got going it really got going. But proximity to Adam was currently frying Ronan’s brain.

“Don’t be absurd,” Gansey huffed. “It’s got sentimental value.”

“See, that’s what a hoarder would say.”

“It’s what anyone with sense would say. Parrish, back me up here.”

“The car’s a beauty, all right.” Adam’s voice was closer now than it’d been before. Ronan couldn’t help it this time; he looked up. Stared. Took in the soft dusty hair that shone in the waning sunlight; the reddish-brown sweater that brought out the color and freckles on Adam’s fine cheekbones; the barely-there curl to his lips that hinted at good humor.

At least he wasn’t holding a grudge after Ronan’s rejection. In fact he didn’t seem fazed at all, looked practically comfortable in his demeanor. That was good, right?

He watched as Adam trailed his fingers reverently along the roof of the car. There was a grease smudge on one of his knuckles from when he’d presumably got the Pig running again; the spark in Ronan’s mind was instantaneous: Alex — _Adam_ — in those coveralls of his, fingers in his mouth, sucking them clean like—

Nope. Not here. He couldn’t do this here.

Ronan hoisted both Adam’s and Gansey’s holdalls out the trunk and slammed it shut.

“You need some help with those?” Adam asked.

“I got it,” Ronan said, and made a breakaway for the porch.

If Ronan thought he’d be able to calm the hell down once inside, he was mistaken. Having Adam here, in his very own _home_ , did nothing to quell Ronan’s racing heart. His body zinged with the rightness of it, like the rightness of perfecting figure-8s in Dad’s borrowed M1 while Matthew cheered him on from the passenger seat, like the rightness of looking down at his canvas and feeling proud with the result, like the rightness of collapsing in his bed at Monmouth that very first night with Gansey just a room away, thinking, _this is how it should be;_ Gansey and Lynch, a two-headed creature.

Only now it seemed strange that Adam hadn’t been by his and Gansey’s sides the whole time. It was so clear to Ronan that Adam belonged here, balancing them both out, filling in all the negative space with wry humor and practicality.

Just months ago Ronan had been convinced that Adam was his competition, a glossy Ivy League model vying for Ronan’s place in Gansey’s glossy Harvard life. How totally ridiculous. How totally wrong.Adam had been drawn into their lives by a force greater than chance; the picture would not look right without him.

So how did Alex fit into things?

The secret weighed heavier on Ronan as the night went on. But one look at his friends huddled over Gansey’s battered journal, deep in conversation, and he resolved to keep it, at least for now. He wouldn’t be the one to ruin this. He needed more time.

Together the three of them camped out on Ronan’s living room floor, eating pizza and sharing stories and planning out the rest of the week. Gansey wanted to take a day trip into Henrietta to show Adam the ‘local haunts.’ Adam was easy going but insisted on cramming in a few hours of study each night. Ronan, however, had better ideas.

“We should take Parrish to the woods,” he said, and subtly watched Adam’s face register the suggestion. It was what Alex would’ve liked, and of all the facts Adam had shared with him via Alex, this one had always rung the truest.

Gansey’s eyes lit up. “Oh absolutely. That’s a must.” Turning towards Adam, he added, “We found this cave out there back in high school. A historical marvel like nothing you’ve ever seen, believe me. I was truly convinced we’d find some old tombs down there.”

“Never found any tombs, but we didget attacked by bats,” Ronan gleefully provided.

“Not literally,” Gansey said. “I can assure you, we’re both rabies free.”

“They just came flying at us outta nowhere. Fucking hundreds of them, screeching murder.”

“Hundreds? Maybe ten at a push.”

“It was fucking metal, dude.”

Gansey smiled wistfully. “It really was, wasn’t it?”

“Dick here shit himself.”

“Okay, that is not what happened. Strike that from the record.”

“Hey,” Ronan said suddenly, “did you tell Parrish about Glendower?”

“I think most of the history department’s heard about Glendower,” Adam said.

“But did he give you the unabridged Glendower story? The full-frontal Glendower?”

“Cut that out,” Gansey groaned. “Ignore him, Parrish. There’s nothing more to it.”

Adam turned to Gansey and said, deadpan, “Aren’t we friends?”

“Of course we are.”

“But you don’t trust me.”

“I trust you more than anyone outside this room.” And as soon as Gansey declared it, it was true; there were no arguments to be had; they were Gansey-Lynch-Parrish now, and perhaps in some other world they always had been.

“If you really trusted me,” Adam said, “you’d give me full-frontal Glendower.”

Ronan grinned savagely. He watched as amusement twinkled in Adam’s eyes the same way he was used to seeing in Alex’s. So many little signs, so obvious in hindsight, and yet Ronan still felt blindsided by the truth. Who _was_ Adam?

“Okay,” Gansey sighed, “fine. You bastards win. When we were in high school, I went through this…phase…of believing Glendower was still alive. And also…perhaps…buried in the cave. Sleeping.”

“But he’s centuries old.”

“When you see those woods, you’ll get it. I mean, I don’t know how else to explain it. You really have to experience it for yourself.”

Adam looked like he was having a hard time deducing how best to respond. “No offense, man,” he said, in what was probably his best attempt at gentleness, “but I don’t think your trees are going to make me believe in immortal kings.”

“Lynch, tell him,” Gansey instructed. “You believed it too.”

“Bullshit, dude. Don’t drag me into this.”

“You did! Don’t you dare deny it.”

“Did I think some creepy cult shit went down in those woods?” Ronan shrugged. “Sure, all right, maybe some virgins got ritualistically sacrificed. But did I think we were about to wake up your dead Welsh boyfriend? Not a chance. And thank fuck we didn’t. You ever heard a Welshman talk? Those fucking accents, man.”

“Ronan!”

“What? I’m allowed to say that. I’m Irish”

“It really doesn’t work like that.”

“Sure it does. Besides, have you seen the Welsh flag? Who else has got a dragon on their flag? They’re show-off bastards.”

“I want you to know,” Gansey said to Adam hastily, “that this does not represent who we are as a team.”

“What about the English?” Adam asked instead. “How do we feel about them?”

Ronan opened his mouth to speak; Gansey leaned over and shoved him.

“Jesus Christ,” Gansey said, but he was smiling. “Et tu, Brute?”

Ronan liked the sound of that: him and Adam a united force, both fluent in assholery. He tried to catch Adam’s eye but he wasn’t paying attention. At some point after dinner he’d switched from leaning cross-legged against the couch to sprawling out on his back, fingers linked on his chest, and Ronan felt proud of this development for reasons he couldn’t express.

“You know,” Gansey said, sudden gleam in his eye, “I can’t believe I’ve never asked. What was it like for you?”

Adam’s brows furrowed. “What was what like?”

“High school. Growing up. You must have some wild tales of your own.”

“Not really.”

“No?”

“Man, not everyone grew up wanting to be Indiana Jones,” Ronan pointed out, and Gansey scrunched his face up like the idea of wanting anything less had not occurred to him.

“What school did you go to again?” he asked Adam. “I don’t think you’ve ever told me.”

“Woodberry. ‘Bout a couple hours south from here,” Adam said.

“No way.”

“You know it?”

“I rowed crew at Aglionby. Your team were our biggest rivals.”

“Small world.”

“Right it is.” Gansey’s tilted his head. “That must’ve been rough, being so far away from home.”

There was a pause in the conversation, barely noticeable. Except Ronan was always watching and so he always noticed.

“I guess,” Adam said. He unlinked his fingers. Re-linked them again.

“Where the fuck do you come from anyway?” Ronan asked.

“Nowhere special.”

“Adam’s from Maryland,” Gansey provided, and Adam neither confirmed nor denied it. “His parents have a country house out in…whereabouts was it again?”

“Just outside Baltimore.”

He was lying. Ronan knew it. Even if, by some miracle, Adam’s family could _afford_ a country house, it sure as hell wasn’t near Baltimore. He gave himself away with the vague responses, the lack of eye contact, the way he kept fidgeting with his hands. Adam was lying and at least some part of him felt uncomfortable about this fact. Ronan didn’t know what to make of it.

_Who the fuck are you, Adam?_

Gansey apparently did not share this skepticism. “You know, that’s one place I’ve never been to. Baltimore. You’ll need to bring us out there one time, give us the tour. I would just love to meet your father.”

Adam said nothing, just nodded along. His face had gone blank though, like he’d checked the hell out of the room, out of the house, out of the moment.

Ronan climbed to his feet and stretched his limbs. He let out a loud, distracting yawn and said, “Fuck sitting on the floor all night. I’m beat.”

It was an effective conversation killer. Both Gansey and Adam followed suit, the former filling up all the silence as they cleaned up the trash and headed upstairs. Ronan took his time in the bathroom, fucking around until he was certain Gansey was out of the way. Then he stepped back into the hall and lingered in the doorway to Matthew’s old room.

Adam had his back to the door. He was staring out the window into the wide open fields below, the slump to his shoulders decidedly melancholic. Ronan hesitated before knocking.

“Sorry,” Adam said, seconds delayed. “Didn’t hear you. I was just…” He shrugged. Ronan made his way across the room and joined him by the window.

Outside, the grass whistled and the barn doors groaned. There was nothing else to look at for miles. One might call that freedom, depending on how they looked at it. Ronan had once.

Ronan considered Adam in the dim room light. Without Gansey here to sand down the edges, Ronan finally felt the awkwardness drifting in the air between them. Of course. Adam had too much pride to make a fuss out of it, but Ronan could see now that their last encounter in the car had not been forgotten no matter how easy Gansey’s presence had made everything feel.

He’d hurt Adam, and then he’d gone and ended their online relationship too. And it’d been easy to tell himself Adam wouldn’t care about losing Greywaren, that their connection had never been real, but it must’ve meant something to Adam for him to chase Ronan up on Twitter. _He’d_ meant something to Adam.

Even if Adam was lying to him.

There were so many things Ronan wanted in that moment. To fix the mess he’d made and get them both on a better page. To spill all his secrets without it turning into a fight. To learn all of Adam’s in return.

When he really got down to it, it was this: he wanted to know who Adam was. He wanted Adam to trust him enough to show him.

Adam finally turned his way. He caught Ronan’s gaze and held it.

“I read—”

“Gans—”

They both paused. Ronan gestured for Adam to continue.

“I was going to say, Gansey was right. This place is…” He didn’t finish but he didn’t have to; the awed look on his face was explanation enough.

“I know,” Ronan said, and shoved his hands in his pockets. Words queued up in his mouth, _where did you really grow up?_ but asking for the truth felt too much like hypocrisy, so he swallowed them back down.

“I read your book,” he offered up instead.

“Really? What did you think of it?”

“Dude’s got some points. _A_ _nimum debes mutare non caelum._ ”

“Fuck,” Adam said, “you’re such a show-off.”

Took one to know one. Ronan thought about saying this in English, then decided that was too simple. He translated, “ _Opus esse uno unum cognoscendi_.”

Adam seemed pleased to be called out, if his barely-there smile was any indication. “ _A_ _nimum debes mutare non caelum,”_ he echoed with a thoughtful tilt to his head. “I liked that too.”

Ronan knew this.Adam had told him in as many words, _‘Sometimes it follows you when you go.’_

What came out was, “Have you ever read Cicero?”

“Just bits and pieces.”

“I’ve got a book of his in the drawer. Well, not his book; just, you know, letters and shit. There’s a bunch of stuff on ethics in there. You’ll like it.”

Adam was still watching him intently, like Ronan was a puzzle he couldn’t make sense of. Ronan needed to step back before he did something stupid, but turning away felt blasphemous. He wanted to soak up every second with Adam he could get.

“It’s in the drawer over there?” Adam said.

“Yeah.”

“I thought you didn’t use this room.”

Admitting he’d put it there with Adam in mind suddenly seemed like too much to cop up to. “I read in here sometimes. I like the quiet.”

Never mind that every room in this house was quiet. Fuck, he should’ve kept his mouth shut.

But then Adam’s barely-smile became a real thing, infinitely softer than Ronan could’ve dared wish for, and he resolved that he’d say all the stupid things in the world if it got Adam to look at him like that.

And that was his cue to get the hell out of dodge.

“Anyway. I should—”

“Right. Me too.”

They both went to move at the same time and then stilled. Adam stood close enough now that Ronan could count every last strand of hair hanging over his forehead. His palms itched with the sudden urge to reach out and run his hand through them.

Whatever awkwardness that had been there before was mostly gone, and now the air felt charged with that same electricity from the party, from the car, from every stolen moment since the start.

And then Adam was dropping his gaze and neatly sidestepping out of the way, and just like that it was over. He watched as Adam walked towards the bed and unzipped his holdall before remembering that he was the one who needed to move. He set off for the door.

“Hey, Lynch?”

Ronan looked back over his shoulder, catching Adam’s eye. He raised his brow.

“Thanks,” Adam said, “for having me.”

It was an innocuous enough phrase but Ronan’s mind took it and ran with it straight to the gutter. Was this how every conversation with Adam was going to be from now on? Constantly reassessing for double entendres? Being hit with graphic images at the most inconvenient of moments?

Not for the first time, he wished he’d never found those videos.

“Don’t sweat it,” Ronan grunted, and then he made a hasty escape.

*

With the plan set in motion, the following days slid by in an easy blur.

It was returning to Monmouth Manufacturing and giving Adam the ‘lay of the land,’ even though the entire downstairs of the building had been reoccupied by a rat family in their absence.

It was venturing into Henrietta’s town center for lunch at Nino’s, dessert at Harry’s, Gansey ordering every wild flavor of gelato on the menu while Ronan challenged Adam to a slushie drinking contest that ended in mutual brain freeze.

It was flying down country roads in Gansey’s Camaro, both Ronan and Adam rejoicing when Gansey gave into boyish recklessness and hit the gas; him and Adam taking turns dragging each other around on a moving dolly behind the BMW while Gansey looked on in mortal terror; setting foot in their beloved woods with Adam beside them and thinking, _this is it, this is it_ , _this is how it should be._

It was better than dreaming. It was the most fun Ronan had had in years.

It was too good, surely, which meant it couldn’t last.

On Thursday, Gansey’s last full day of freedom before family obligations called, they set off for the cave they’d told Adam about. The intent was to give Adam the full Glendower experience, illusion of adventure and all, but there was one thing none of them had accounted for: poor weather.

“How’s it look?”

Gansey shook his head miserably. “Waterlogged.”

This was disappointing but not surprising. It’d been raining nonstop since the early hours of the morning. The sudden storm had wiped out entire roads in the valley and made various paths in the wood uninhabitable. Still, they’d trekked out here to the cave entrance with the need to see how bad it was for themselves.

“How dangerous can it really be?” Ronan said. “We’ve got rope.”

“I’m not putting anyone’s lives at risk just for a bit of tomfoolery.”

Adam and Ronan shared a mocking look.

Gansey caught on a second too late. “What?”

They shook their heads in unison.

“Is it because I said tomfoolery? Because I stand by my word choice. Tell me a better noun I could’ve used.”

“Horseplay,” Ronan suggested, as Adam slyly said, “Shenanigans.”

Gansey sighed like a beleaguered parent and said, “I swear to God.”

They hiked back the way they came, back to the Camaro, and convened at Nino’s instead. This was partly to prove a point to Adam, who’d insisted that the food surely could not be good enough to warrant eating here every day for three years straight, but mostly due to convenience and overpowering nostalgia. Sliding into that cracked leather booth felt like coming home after a rough day on the road. Here Ronan could pretend he was eighteen again and three years of bad decisions had not yet happened, and he hadn’t been left behind.

Beneath the table, his foot knocked against Adam’s.

Maybe the present wasn’t all bad.

As they finished up the last of their pizzas and sodas, Gansey’s phone buzzed on the table. He made a startled sound and hastily picked it up, but not quick enough; Ronan spied the name.

“Dick, your girlfriend’s calling,” he hollered.

“I can see that,” Gansey snapped. “And she’s not my girlfriend.”

“Didn’t she hang up on you the other night because of the flat tax thing?” said Adam.

“I told you, Parrish, my argument was misconstrued. We’ve since talked it over, and now we’re on the same page.”

“Then why aren’t you picking up?”

Gansey gestured between Adam and Ronan. Ronan grinned savagely.

“He’s embarrassed of us.”

“I’m not. I just think it would be uncouth to take a phone call in the middle of dinner.”

“Hey, you can talk to Magenta all you want, man. All one to us.”

“Her name is Blue.”

“You were calling her Jane the other night,” Adam pointed out.

Gansey shook his head, cheeks flushed. He rose from the table. “Are we done here?”

They could’ve easily hung around for another hour of so; they didn’t. They headed straight for the Barns instead.

The Barns, where Declan’s Volvo was already parked in the driveway. Ronan’s mood soured in an instant.

Both Declan and Matthew still held keys to the house, though the latter would be hard-pressed to tell you where his was and the former only used his during emergencies (in other words, when Ronan couldn’t be assed answering the door). No doubt Declan had seen the BMW and assumed Ronan was inside and playing difficult. That didn’t make it any less annoying.

Gansey frowned when he spotted the other car and shot Ronan a questioning look. Ronan shrugged. He climbed out the passenger seat of the Camaro and made a run for the porch. Slammed the door shut to announce his presence.

Declan, who was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee from one of their mother’s mugs, eyed him warily as he stepped inside.

“I called ahead,” he said, which was code for, _would it kill you to answer the phone?_

Ronan shrugged, a passive _what do you want me to say to that?_

Fighting with Declan had at one point been the only connection he and his oldest brother had. Things weren’t like that anymore though. Ronan had committed to getting his shit together, meeting Declan…well, maybe not halfway, but _some_ of the way. Sometimes.

But they’d never be best friends. You couldn’t be, with someone who fancied themselves your guardian rather than your brother.

The sound of the front door opening made Declan raise his eyebrow. This was why Ronan didn’t want him here. Conversations between the eldest Lynch brothers were always tense affairs, best not had before an audience. Not that Ronan usually gave any consideration for causing a scene — that was Declan’s wheelhouse — but some shit was better left private, especially when the bystanders in question were the rare few whose opinions mattered.

Gansey was used to Lynch drama. But Adam, unless Gansey had warned him, had no idea what he could be walking into.

“What the fuck was so important you had to drive down here?” Ronan asked. “It couldn’t wait till Sunday?”

“No, Ronan. It couldn’t.”

Ronan’s mind flew to the worst possible place. “Is Matthew—?”

“He’s fine. Relax. It’s not about him.” Declan took a long drink from his mug and then carefully sat it down. “It’s good news, actually. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it for a while.”

“Well spit it out, then.”

“I bought back the gallery.”

Ronan’s eyes widened.

Once upon a time, Niall Lynch had made his fortune dealing art to bougie assholes. He’d bought a gallery in Alexandria, met his wife through an exhibition, and raised his sons with the hopes of spurring in them that same creative talent that had carried the Lynch name so far.

The middle Lynch son had taken to art with gusto. The eldest Lynch, not so much.

When both wife and husband passed away in a rear-end accident, the orphans Lynch were left with 50% stakes in a booming business none of them were prepared to manage. Declan, reigning control freak of the trio, took it upon himself to sell their half to Niall’s partner before anyone else could have their say.

And now this. Out of nowhere. If you’d asked Ronan ten minutes ago, _two_ minutes ago, he would’ve said Declan wasn’t capable of surprising.

Footsteps shuffled into the room behind them. Declan looked up; Ronan didn’t.

“Declan,” Gansey said, voice polite but all formalities. “Good to see you.”

“Gansey.” Declan smiled pleasantly but just as formally. “I didn’t know you were in town.”

“It’s spring break. I always visit for spring break.” He paused for a second, then added, “Where are my manners? Declan, this is Adam Parrish. Declan here is Ronan’s older brother.”

Ronan said, “Did you suffer a head injury you didn’t tell us about?”

The room fell silent.

“It’s been in the plans for months,” Declan answered.

“Oh, all right, so you’re having a mid-life fucking crisis then.”

“We’ll be next door, if you need us,” Gansey said from behind them.

Declan waited until Gansey and Adam had retreated before turning back to Ronan and saying, “I thought you’d be happy about this. If I remember correctly, you threatened to never speak to me again when I sold our share in the first place.”

“I just don’t get it. You wiped your hands of this shit years ago, now all of a sudden you want it back?”

“I wiped my hands of it because I didn’t know what to do with it. Jesus, I was nineteen. It made sense to let Seondeok take charge.”

“Then why the change of heart?”

“Because it’s important,” Declan said, and Ronan recoiled from the double whammy shock of that. “Look, I met someone—”

Ronan scoffed.

“Please let me finish. I met this woman, Jordan. She’s an artist, and you know I’ve never been good at art but I’ve always liked it, and she reminded me just how much. And then Seondeok called and said she was leaving the States, and it felt like a sign. I had to do it.”

“What happened to working on the Hill?” Ronan asked.

“I hate it.”

Triple whammy. What the fuck.

“Grad school, the internships, the people — all of it. I hate all of it.” Declan ran a hand through his hair, mussed it up. “And I’m sick to God of pretending to be happy like this when I could have so much more.”

Ronan had the hazy recollection of a conversation from last month or the month before. _It’s okay to want more_. Now it made sense.

“How does this even work?” he asked. “Why would she sell it to you, of all people?”

“We’ve kept in touch over the years. I’ve been checking in on the gallery every once in a while. She must’ve known I hadn’t let it go.” Declan’s gaze turned thoughtful. “And, you know, I did used to work there for Dad before everything went to shit. Seondeok must’ve felt convinced enough that I could handle the pressure.”

It was a lot to take in. Ronan felt like he was seeing Declan for the first time. He felt the urge to pace the room until he got dizzy, because at least then there’d be good reason for his head to keep spinning.

“What’s the catch?”

“There is no catch.”

“Bullshit. There’s always a catch.”

Declan sighed. “I was hoping you’d get involved.”

The shocks just kept coming. “Why?”

“Because you’re good at this kind of thing.”

“What, schmoozing with pretentious assholes that think too highly of themselves? The fuck gave you that idea?”

“I meant you have an eye for art.”

“Yeah, the kind of shit that doesn’t sell. How’s that good for business?”

“Jesus, Ronan. Because it’s Dad’s gallery and this is what he would want, okay? And it’s not like you’re doing anything better.”

And there it was, the real Declan coming out. He could never go too long without a lecture.

“Oh, piss up a rope,” Ronan spat.

“Are you really going stand there and say it’s not true?” Declan was on his feet now, coffee finished. “What have you been up to this past year? Enlighten me.”

“What does it have to do with you?”

“I get calls from your sponsor when you don’t pick up the phone to him,” Declan said. “Any time you get yourself into some shit, I’m the one who comes running to clean up the mess. It has everything to do with me.”

“See, that’s your fucking problem, man,” Ronan said. “Everything’s a guilt-trip with you. You oughtta sell up right now and join a seminary.”

“So you don’t want to get involved, then?”

“I’ve got better things to do than get bossed around by you all day.”

“Like what?” Declan asked. “Sulking around in this house all day, hiding from life?”

It was the worst thing Declan could’ve said. It was the truth weaponized to maximum effect, and Ronan felt the words landing like a sucker punch to the face.

“Don’t show up here and act like you know shit,” Ronan said, but that was a weak retort and he knew it. Declan had been there when Ronan hauled his ass to rehab. He’d lived with him when he crawled back out. He’d paid off Ronan’s speeding tickets and bailed Ronan out of DUI charges and handled the mess with Kavinsky before it pushed Ronan over the ledge yet again. He knew more than anyone what a first-class fuck-up Ronan was.

There was a knock on the door before Declan could argue, and then Gansey ventured back into the room and asked, “Is everything good here?”

“Declan was just leaving,” Ronan said, and Declan blanched.

“I’m not leaving until we discuss the situation.”

“Discuss the situation,” Ronan echoed, voice as mocking as he could make it.

“I really think it’s best if you go,” Gansey said, “before this gets messy.”

Declan laughed. It was a short, sharp bark, cold enough to indicate how little of this conversation he found funny.

“You are so full of shit,” Declan said. “Why don’t you tell him what you told me? See if he’ll listen when it’s coming from someone he can stand.”

Ronan furrowed his brows, at a loss. Then he noticed how Gansey’s face had paled and it clicked.

“What the fuck.”

“It’s not—” Gansey shook his head. Tried again. “I didn’t talk about you to Declan. You know I wouldn’t do that. We ran into each other a few months back in DC, that’s it. I barely remember what we spoke about.”

“You said you were worried about him wasting away here,” Declan volunteered.

Ronan couldn’t listen to this. He said, “Fuck the two of you,” and left.

Out the room, out the house, down the porch steps and into the pouring rain. Keys in his hand, he unlocked the car. Climbed in. Slammed the door. Punched the wheel.

“Lynch!”

Ronan looked up. Through the hazy storm-soaked windshield, he could just about make out a figure hovering by the front door. Adam. When Ronan didn’t answer, Adam jogged down the steps.

Ronan clicked his seatbelt on and started the engine. It would be so easy to drive away; he chose not to.

He rolled the window down and yelled, “You in or what, man?”

Adam got in.

As Ronan backed out the driveway, he said, “I don’t want to talk,” and Adam said, “What would we talk about?” and that was good enough. That was exactly what he needed to hear.

He drove for miles, no destination in mind, tearing down winding backroad after backroad till the sky went dark. He was angry till he wasn’t, till he’d burned it all off and left himself with excess shame. This, too, couldn’t be allowed to linger; he pushed on the gas, edging up to the speed limit and then beyond it. _There_ it was. Freedom. Joy. Nothingness that could only be found behind the wheel.

He shot gloriously down the streets, mind wiped clean.

This was when Adam broke his silence. “We’re gonna get pulled over.”

“I don’t care.”

“I care.”

Ronan scowled but slowed down somewhat. “How much of that shitshow did you hear back there?”

“I tried not to listen.”

Which meant he’d heard enough of it to get the gist. “Well, Dicks 1 and 2 are already doing a grand job babysitting. I don’t need you on my ass too. So if that’s what you’re here for—”

“As if I’d try.” Adam’s gaze turned devastatingly withering. If anything, it only made him more attractive. “I don’t care what you do with your life. I just don’t like dealing with cops.”

It was hard to imagine a single instance in which strait-laced white-skinned Adam Parrish would’ve ever _had_ to deal with a cop. Then again, it was also hard to imagine strait-laced Adam Parrish making porn.

Ronan barked out a laugh and said, “Better get used to it, Harvard boy. I hear it’s a big part of working with the law.”

The car fell quiet once again. Ronan drove for another ten, twenty minutes, but the uncomplicated happiness he’d briefly felt was gone. Reality was in the rear view and it couldn’t be evaded, only outpaced.

He pulled over.

They were nowhere. Anywhere. Trees and fields flanked them on either side. The road was more clay than asphalt, broaching out into infinity. His high beams were the only things lighting the way. He kept the engine running and watched the windshields wage against the storm.

“You think Gansey’ll take the hint and leave a night early?” he said.

“Have you met Gansey?” Adam replied. “I’m surprised he didn’t tail us all the way out here.”

“He’s a dick sometimes.”

“Only by accident.”

“That makes it worse.”

Adam smiled.“I meant what I said about not listening,” he said, “so I don’t know what he did to piss you off. But I know he probably thought he was helping.”

How could Ronan explain that this was the problem? Between Gansey and Declan, someone was always trying to help but no one really understood. His problems didn’t rest in the material world. They were terrors that he plucked from his head. Something had got fucked up in there a long time ago and it wasn’t being fixed any time soon.

That made it easier to stay at the Barns. He’d gone to rehab, he’d dropped all his worst habits, and now this was his refuge. What was the point in going anywhere else? _A_ _nimum debes mutare non caelum_ and all. At least at the Barns Ronan knew what he was. A loser. He didn’t have to pretend to be more than that, didn’t have anyone left to disappoint.

Talking with Alex had given Ronan hope that maybe someone else out there got it. Now Alex was Adam and Adam was here, and Ronan didn’t know what was real anymore. But he wanted to explain himself, even without the cover of the screen. He wanted to try.

“He thinks I’m wasting my life,” he said. “They both do. They want me where they can see me in case I fuck shit up.”

“Why do they think you’re gonna fuck shit up?”

“Because I did before.” He took a deep breath. “I had this friend for a while. Another addict. I think I mentioned him before. Anyway, he was a real mess, like straight up toxic. We got into so much shit together, and then I stopped, and then everyone else left and he was the only one still here.”

It was not an easy story to tell. Things with K had always been complicated. They were friends only in the most basic sense of the word, united more in mutual self-destruction rather than any warm fuzzy feelings for one another. Still, Ronan tried his best to put it into words. The drinking. The street racing. The parties.

He left out the drugs, because that had been more K’s wheelhouse than his, and the hookups, because those had only happened when they were both too out of it to remember there was nothing really there. It all amounted to the same thing anyway: endless mistakes, fueling each other’s self-hatred because what else was there?

The world’s a nightmare, K had always said, and he’d meant it too; he OD’d one night and that was that.

Ergo, rehab. Ergo, the Barns. Ergo, a brother and best friend who never stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop. Look what happened last time we left you alone. Look at the shit you pulled.

As if Ronan could forget.

He was certain Adam already knew about his parents. He didn’t think he had to explain how _that_ had gone; even five years old and covered up by bands, the scars on his wrist were not subtle.

He waited for judgement.

What he got was quid pro quo. “I’m not really from Baltimore.”

And Ronan had known this so he didn’t feign surprise. He asked, “Why lie about it?”

“I’m not like Gansey or you. I don’t come from money.” His hands twisted in his lap. He looked thoughtful, almost penitent, like a saint from a prayer book cover. “Everyone at Harvard does. I just thought, I’ll tell them what they’ll understand so I can fit in, and then it stuck.”

“You don’t fit in.”

“Wow.” Adam’s gaze turned severe, from saint to avenging angel in a heartbeat. “You sure know how to read a room.”

“Jesus. Hold on. I didn’t mean that as an insult.”

“How did you mean it then?”

“You know how.”

“I really don’t,” Adam said. He was all neon and shadows in the dark, face dimly lit by the dash, hauntingly beautiful. Want was a furious beast inside Ronan, hollowing him out.

He considered telling Adam that he was unlike those other Ivy League assholes, unlike anyone period, that Ronan had been dreaming of him for months. Considered telling him the truth.

But Ronan had always been a man of action when you got down to it; he leaned in and kissed Adam instead.

It was careful until it wasn’t, until Adam’s surprise gave way to hunger and he kissed Ronan back. His hands uncurled from his lap in order to grip the fabric of Ronan’s shirt. His mouth opened against Ronan’s, gasping at the first dizzying brush on tongue. It was too much, not enough, and Ronan barely knew what he was after, only knew that he _wanted_. So he slid his hand through Adam’s hair, cupped his face with the other, and held him like that until he ran out of breath.

When they finally separated they were both breathing heavily. He felt as stunned as Adam looked, even though he’d been the one to make a move.

“I didn’t think…” Adam started. “After last time—”

Ronan kissed him again before he could finish. Adam allowed it for a second before pulling back.

“I’m serious,” he said with a nervous laugh. “Not that I don’t want this, but the mixed signals are confusing as hell.”

“There’s nothing confusing about it,” Ronan said. “I want you. That’s it.”

Adam still looked wary and Ronan hated himself for being the reason for it. He ran his fingertips over Adam’s cheek, as delicate and reverent as he could make it.

Adam watched him from beneath dusty lashes, eyes gradually softening. “You mean that?”

“Yes.” His thumb brushed over Adam’s lips. He felt it in more places than one when Adam’s lips parted and licked the skin. When he sucked Ronan in.

“Okay,” Adam breathed out, and just like that it was simple. Just like that he had Adam’s mouth back on his and Adam’s hands on his skin and Adam shifting Ronan’s seat back so he could climb across the gearshift to straddle him. It was heady and hot and Ronan’s body zing zing zinged with the rightness of it.

None of their secrets mattered. All that shit could wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> latin translations:  
> "Animum debes mutare non caelum" = you should change your state of mind, not the sky  
> "Opus esse uno unum cognoscendi" = takes one to know one
> 
> i know you're all gonna want to kill me for making you sit in suspense for ANOTHER chapter but in my defence everyone loves a slowburn, right?
> 
> also i'm now on tumblr at [sunset-moons](http://sunset-moons.tumblr.com) and so far i've done nothing besides frantically reblog fanart lol, but if you ever wanna hmu then feel free!!


	8. Chapter 8

Ronan Lynch wanted him. Not anyone else, _him._ Adam Parrish.

What a wondrous thought.

The thrill of it had carried Adam all the way back from Singer’s Falls, Virginia, to Cambridge, Massachusetts on a high unlike anything he’d felt in months. Maybe longer. The feeling could not be so easily categorized due to its unfamiliarity in Adam’s life.

It was like opening up his Harvard acceptance letter all over again, like Gansey inviting Adam into his inner circle with the assurance that his company was not only tolerated but desired. Rare sparks of light in between the drudgery when happiness finally felt obtainable, when Adam finally felt like enough.

It wouldn’t last. It never did. Reality was the cord around his waist tethering him to the earth, and once the initial excitement wore off he’d be left with nothing but the cold grim facts: he was lying to Ronan; he was lying to Gansey; he traded in sexual fantasies for a living, and no one sensible would have any time for that.

That could come later. For now, Adam closed his eyes and relived the sensation of Ronan’s mouth on his. He soaked in the storm and let it carry him away.

*

There’d been no sex, though not for a lack of interest. Sitting there in Ronan’s lap, grinding against his crotch, it’d been impossible not to notice the effect he was having. The first feel of that thick hardness in between them had Adam dizzy with want, his own body responding in kind.

Fucking in cars was never ideal — there was never enough room — but he would’ve dropped to his knees right then and there and crammed himself into the foot space if Ronan asked.

Ronan hadn’t asked.

When Adam’s hand drifted down to the zipper of his jeans, Ronan caught him by the wrist.

“Scared you’ll give the cops a show?” he asked.

“I don’t fuck on the first date.”

“First date?” Adam’s smile took on a teasing edge. “I would’ve said fourth.”

The blank look Ronan shot him demanded clarification. Adam said, “All those other late night drives.”

“Those weren’t dates.”

“Right, so you weren’t just looking for excuses to get me in this car.”

“That doesn’t make it a date,” Ronan said, and the slightly scandalized tone had Adam grinning from ear to ear.

“I’m sorry. What counts as a real date in the Ronan Lynch handbook, then?”

“I don’t know. Dinner and shit.”

“And shit.”

“You know what I mean, you asshole. Seeing a movie, getting drinks, fucking going somewhere.”

Adam had never done any of those things on a real date, but then again, Adam had never been on a real date to begin with. He’d had a girlfriend junior year of high school, but that had lasted all of two weeks and involved nothing beyond a couple of awkward kisses and a whole lot of vague non-responses before she got sick of Adam’s nonsense.

“I barely know anything about you,” had been her parting words. “It’s like you don’t _want_ me knowing anything about you.”

Who could argue with that logic?

“Well, neither of us drink,” Adam said, “and I wouldn’t say we’re the fancy dinner types, so…” He leaned in again; Ronan met him halfway.

This kiss felt a lot less frenzied than the ones they’d been sharing before, and Adam found he liked the change of pace. It gave him more time to take Ronan in. To enjoy him. To categorize each new and alluring sensation — the brush of stubble, the filthy drag of tongue, the solid weight of muscle underneath his hands…

There was a lot to absorb, almost enough to overwhelm him, but Ronan’s kisses were a grounding force. Forget about everything else, they said. Shut your eyes and feel it.

So Adam did.

There was no telling how long they spent like that, wrapped up together on the side of the road. When Ronan finally pulled away, the storm was still raging outside but the windshield wipers had long gone still. It was impossible to see through the rain-soaked blurry windows; one might assume life began and ended within this car.

“There’s a movie theater back in Henrietta,” Ronan said when he caught his breath.

“Are you asking me on a Lynch-sanctioned date?”

“Not if you’re gonna be a shitbag about it.” He scowled but Adam wasn’t fooled. There was a restless energy to his movements now that Adam was beginning to realize betrayed nerves.

Ronan Lynch, nervous because of him. This would take some getting used to.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he pointed out, and then because the reminder stung him just as much, if not more than it did Ronan, “but next time…”

“You’d come back here?”

Adam nodded like it was obvious because it _was_ , and just like that all those sharp edges melted away, and Ronan was smiling at him with far more tenderness than Adam ever could’ve anticipated. Adam’s stomach swooped. No one had ever looked at him like that; this too would take some getting used to.

“Or you could come to Cambridge again,” he suggested on a whim. “I’m going to be busy for months — I’ve got the LSAT in June — but if you wanted—”

“All right.”

“You don’t have to.”

“No shit.” Ronan’s thumb brushed gently against Adam’s cheek, making a riot out of Adam’s insides. “But I want to see you.”

Adam buried his face against the crook of Ronan’s neck to hide his smile. God, this was getting embarrassing. He felt like a teen experiencing their first crush, giddy and out of control.

“You know,” he said, “I really don’t care that much about movies.”

“Then we’ll find some other shit to do.”

“Or we can skip the date part altogether. I’m easy like that.” He rocked his hips just to emphasize his point.

“Fuck,” Ronan groaned. “You don’t play fair.”

“What was it you called me again? Calculating?”

“That was putting it fucking lightly.”

“Yeah? Well don’t hold back on me, Lynch.” Adam mouthed at his neck. “Whatever you got, I can take it.”

This earned him a laugh that devolved into another choked off swear as Adam bit down on sensitive skin.

Ronan Lynch wanted him, wanted more than just sex, and this knowledge was enough to erase all bad feeling that had come before it, all bad feeling ever.

It was enough.

*

But reality was relentless and waited for no one. Back in Cambridge, there were bills to pay and classes to attend and a future to study for. Thoughts of Ronan made the days pass quicker and gave Adam something to look forward to, but they didn’t lesson the heavy work load or stress.

One such point of stress was Gansey. His cold war with Ronan was still ongoing and without ever intending it, Adam had become something of a go-between. Messages from Gansey (usually to the effect of ‘Stop ignoring me’) were passed to Adam and reluctantly relayed on to Ronan. Messages from Ronan (usually to the effect of ‘Fuck you, Dick’) were then sent back in kind, with Adam editing out the colorful insults along the way.

It was becoming frustrating. Adam still didn’t know the exact details of the argument and he hadn’t asked. It wasn’t his business, and he was sick of them making it his business.

After a week, his polite facade broke. “If you want to get in touch with Ronan so bad, do it yourself,” he told Gansey. “I’m not being the messenger boy anymore.”

“You don’t know what it’s like to fight with him. He’s impossible,” Gansey said. “He’s not going to answer that phone until he decides he’s over it, and god knows when that’ll be.”

“Have you tried saying sorry?”

“He knows I’m sorry.”

“There’s a difference between knowing something and hearing it out loud.”

Gansey frowned. “I don’t see what difference it’ll make. Ronan won’t care if I apologize, he’ll only care that I messed up in the first place.” He let out a bone weary sigh and slumped back against the rickety library chair. “Doesn’t matter if I was just trying to help. That’s what you get for caring about people, I suppose.”

Adam couldn’t sympathize, as much as he tried to. He knew Gansey was well-intentioned and only wanted the best for Ronan, but he also knew first hand what it felt like to have a well-intentioned outsider try to meddle in one’s business. To be stripped of all freedom, all choices, all control.

It never ended well; some things you couldn’t understand until you’d been there yourself.

“With an attitude like that, it’s a real wonder he hasn’t called you back,” Adam deadpanned.

Gansey’s face went through a series of expressions before finally settling on a rueful smile.

“I’m being self-pitying, aren’t I?”

“You said it, not me.”

Later that night, on the phone, Ronan said, “So, I spoke to Gansey.”

“That’s good,” Adam said. A silent beat ticked by. “Right?”

“He’s still a dick.”

“Well, it’s in his name. You can’t hold that against him.”

Ronan barked out a laugh, which Adam took to mean things were back to normal again. Or as close to normal as they could get, given the circumstances.

“You still reading Cicero?” Ronan asked.

Adam was. He’d been working his way through Cicero’s letters on friendship, translating them to English and then transcribing them one section at a time, but it was slow work. Adam wanted to be sure his understanding of the text was perfect before moving on.

When he explained this much to Ronan, Ronan laughed again and said, “You crazy bastard. You know you can buy an English copy, right?”

“I like doing it myself. Keeps me busy.”

“Oh sure, because the Ivy League and fucking law school prep wasn’t enough.”

Adam smiled. He suspected Ronan understood even if he was pretending otherwise. Latin inspired the same awe in him that it did in Adam and he took pride in expressing his fluency — even if his grammar sometimes sucked.

“Do you want to hear where I’m at?”

“What, and give you a passing grade and a gold star?”

“Bastard,” Adam said, because now the image of Ronan as a teacher — Ronan in a _suit_ , looming over Adam with that shockingly intense look in his eyes, and what an impossibly sexy image that was — was branded at the forefront of his mind, and this was not the time for getting turned on.

“Fine then,” Ronan said. “Let’s hear it.”

Adam leaned over to his bedside cabinet and grabbed the notebook he’d been writing his translations in. He flipped to the most recent page, where he’d just finished transcribing Section 59. So far, Cicero had outlined three popular viewpoints on the limits of friendship, and now he was making his case for why he disagreed with each.

Adam read, “The third definition is truly the worst, that each man should be valued by his friends as much as he values himself. For often in these matters, either one’s mind is too self-degrading or hope of increasing one’s fortune is too destructive.

“So it is not right to be the same to him as he is to himself, but rather one should strive for and ensure that he raises his friend’s fallen mind and leads it to better hopes and thoughts.”

The line stayed quiet even after Adam finished reading, but he was used to these silences with Ronan. Had grown comfortable sharing them, even. His eyes lingered over the page he’d just read and he wondered what it had sparked in Ronan’s mind. For Adam, the connection between Cicero’s text and Ronan and Gansey had been instantaneous. They were true friends as Cicero described them: picked out with care; lovable in nature; desiring Adam’s company not for material gain but for its own sake.

Trustworthy. Honest. Not focused on transactions. 

Good people.

And here was the second point of stress: Ronan and Gansey were different breeds from Adam Parrish, pretender. How long before they realized?

But that was why he liked this stanza — it gave him hope that he could still be worthy, that the friends he’d procured might still find something of value in him even if they learned what he came from. They could be more than him, better than him, and lead him to be better in turn.

“What part’s that from?” Ronan asked.

“Section 59.”

More silence. It occurred to Adam that Ronan was probably hunting down the real translation online.

Sure enough, moments later, “Got it in one. Gold fucking star for you.”

Adam bit back a smile as pleasurable warmth took root in his stomach. It was enough, it was enough.

“Your turn now,” he suggested. “Say it back to me. In Latin.”

Ronan did no such thing.

That didn’t stop them from talking for another forty minutes.

*

The last point of stress, besides finals stress and LSAT stress and the general stress of living, was work stress. Specially, cam work stress.

Camming, once an escape from the endless complications of Being Adam Parrish, now held little allure. Coming off the phone with Ronan just to play the role of Alex made Adam feel all sorts of sleazy inside. He couldn’t keep himself and Alex separate when Ronan was on his mind during every show.

It was staring down the camera on his hands and knees, rocking back on a fake cock with the fantasy of Ronan behind him.

Watching the requests fly in with shame thick in his throat, telling himself it wasn’t lying when Alex wasn’t real.

Acting his way through private shows and then detaching from it all once the camera stopped rolling. What had he spent the last hour doing? Couldn’t say. Wasn’t him, really.

It wasn’t cheating. It was money, it was rent, it was a ticket to a golden future where he got to do more than just live through it — and if some small damaged part of him got off on being wanted, admired, good enough for someone, well that was his business.

But just because it was easily rationalized by Adam didn’t mean it would be by anyone else. Ronan was an all-or-nothing black-or-white kind of guy, intensely principled and honest to a fault. Not being upfront with him was akin to deception, and Adam had heard from Gansey how little tolerance Ronan had for that.

The argument played out night after night in Adam’s mind — back and forth, reaction and response.

_Would it make a difference if you knew I’m always thinking of you?_

Not one bit, Ronan said, and how the fuck could Adam prove that anyway?

_There’s nothing there._

_It isn’t real._

_They don’t know me like you._

What about Greywaren? Ronan asked, and it didn’t matter that the real Ronan had no way of knowing who that was. The Ronan in Adam’s head knew; he knew everything.

And what _about_ Greywaren? Adam hadn’t thought much of him since returning from the Barns. Had been working not to. He hadn’t answered Adam’s DM, so that was that. Easy to write the whole thing off as an exercise in poor judgement. Here lies Adam Parrish, sensible in theory but not so much in practice.

It was loneliness or delusion or some heady mix of the two that had kept Adam coming back to Greywaren each week, eager for the attention, but now things were looking up and Adam didn’t need that crutch anymore. He finally had something real.

And Greywaren and Ronan had a lot in common when Adam thought about it, so much so that the former’s absence didn’t feel so prominent. More than anything these days, Adam was angry about how the whole affair had gone down ****—**** because who was Greywaren to trick Adam into being his friend and then toss him away the minute he got what he came for? How stupid could Adam have been to get so caught up in a baseless fantasy?

Adam had been nothing but jerk-off fodder for Greywaren all along, and how rich was that when he’d berated all those other men for seeking out the same thing?

No, Greywaren was nothing just like the rest of them. Nothing Alex did was real. It didn’t mean anything.

But Ronan ought to know. Adam ought to tell him.

And if Ronan was disgusted? If Ronan told Gansey?

Adam shut those fears down. Turned on the camera. Left himself behind.

“So, I got something different I wanna try out tonight,” said with brazen confidence in clunky drawling tones. “A new toy I think y’all are gonna like.”

*

A week before the end of Spring semester, Gansey came to Adam with an unexpected request.

“You want me to third-wheel your date?”

“It wouldn’t be third wheeling,” Gansey said. “Henry’s going to be there too. And Blue wants it on the record that this is not, in no uncertain terms, a date.”

“If Cheng’s going, why do you need me too?”

“Because Henry’s accompanying us as a social buffer. _You’ll_ be there as my moral support.”

“Gansey,” Adam said, suddenly aghast, “if this is your attempt at a set-up—”

“Oh Christ no. I hadn’t even considered — I would _never…_ ”

Gansey made his case for innocence. Adam nodded along and kindly let it go. He didn’t truly believe Gansey wanted to set him up with Henry, but the alternative sounded like bullshit too. As if Adam of all people could be counted on for moral support; he’d sooner help Gansey bury the body than talk him through his guilt.

He still caved in the end. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do besides hole up and study.

At the bar, Adam prepared for side-eyes while asking for a Coke. Neither Blue nor Henry said anything about it though. Everyone, Gansey included, was in good spirits, the conversations flowing as easily as the drinks.

Adam did his best to keep up, sitting with his right ear to the group, contributing jokes and observations whenever he could, but he still felt sorely out of his depth. Blue was so shamelessly true to herself, frank about what she came from even in the face of these excessively wealthy men. She had an accent similar to the one Adam had trained himself out of using. She dressed in eclectic clothes she had sewn together herself and spoke of her scholarship at BU with a challenge in her eyes, like she was daring anyone at the table to question her right to be there. She knew who she was. She knew her worth.

Adam liked her, but he couldn’t look her in the eye.

Gansey liked her too and made no effort to hide it. He was smitten, practically hanging on Blue’s every word. Did he care that Blue was so much unlike him? Had he ever cared?

Adam wished, not for the first time since arriving, that Ronan was here. He never felt more present than when Ronan was beside him. Ronan knew just how to lure Adam out of his head and into the moment, and right now Adam needed it.

Back home in his dumpy studio apartment, after dropping the whole group off, Adam reached for his phone and dialed Ronan without thinking. It was late; he’d be busy or sleeping or out of reach; he barely paid attention to the thing even when it was a _decent_ time of—

“What’s up?”

Adam breathed out, days’ worth of tension falling from his shoulders. He slouched back on the bed and hugged the phone to his good ear.

“I know it’s late,” he started.

“I wasn’t sleeping anyway.”

Now that Adam was paying attention, he noticed the faint hum of music in the background. “Are you out somewhere?”

“I’m at Matthew’s.”

Matthew, who studied at NYU and had a city apartment with a couple of friends. That meant Ronan was staying in New York, four hours away instead of eight. Twice as close as before but still not close enough.

“How is he?”

“Well, him and his dumbass buddies got stranded out in Bumfuck Nowhere, Pennsylvania this morning,” Ronan said. “But apart from that…”

“They what?”

“Don’t ask. I hauled ass out here to save these little fuckers and I still don’t know the whole story. Something about a brother’s girlfriend’s granddad’s ranch.”

Adam laughed and the sound echoed around the room. The empty room.

“What you calling for anyway? I thought you were chaperoning Gansey to the prom tonight.”

“I…” _I’m not who I said I was but does it really change anything? I’m a fraud but will you still want me? Please don’t stop wanting_ — “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Adam swallowed thickly. Want simmered underneath his skin. He didn’t know how to say it, all of it, any of it, so what came out was, “Wish I could touch you right now. Like I did in the car.”

“Shit,” Ronan said. “Hold on a second.”

The line went crackly and Adam could tell he was moving around. There was some muffled conversation, a door slamming, the thud of footsteps as the music drifted further and further into the background. When the second door slammed, Adam took it as proof they were both alone.

“What were you saying?” Ronan’s voice was lower now, dark edged. “Something about wanting me?”

“Ronan.”

“What? You’re the one who started this. Jesus, Adam, the shit you say.”

But Ronan couldn’t imagine the half of it. If he knew— “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie. You’ve got a filthy mouth, you bastard.”

The warmth in Adam’s gut sizzled into hot pleasure. “You think so?”

“I fucking know so.”

If he’d started it, he may as well keep going with it. “You better do something about it then. Give me something to shut me up.”

Ronan let out a heavy breath. “Yeah?” he said again, and there was no hiding the arousal in his voice. “You want that?”

“I think you know the answer already.”

“Doesn’t matter. If you want it so bad, you need to say it.”

Adam bit back a groan, cock twitching in his pants. He stretched his legs out wider on the bed.

“Adam—”

“I want it,” he said.

“Want what?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ronan said, and god he was the worst. Except he wasn’t at all, and Adam’s baser needs outweighed all desire to screw with him right back.

“I want your cock in my mouth,” Adam blurted out with all the brazen confidence he reserved for his shows. “I’ve been thinking about it for months, you know. How you’d taste, what kind of sounds you’d make.”

“Fuck. Jesus _fuck._ ”

“Yeah. Those sounds. I love the way you swear.”

“Are you in bed right now?”

“No, I’m hanging out in the stairway. My neighbors say hi.”

“Lie down,” Ronan said. “On your back.”

There was nothing aggressive about his tone but he wasn’t playing around anymore either; he was blunt and assured, the same way he’d been while teaching Adam to drive stick.

Adam was already lying on his back, but he set the phone down to pull all his clothes off before scooting back into position. He picked the phone back up. “What now?”

“Are you doing it?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m gonna climb over you,” and Adam squeezed his eyes shut, pictured it, “so I’m kneeling over your shoulders.”

He could see Ronan now, the fantasy of him vivid and pinprick sharp. Arrogant, intense, a powerful god looming over his kingdom. His cock was in his hand and it was thick and hard and wet at the slit. Adam’s mouth ached like he’d already had it inside him.

“I’m touching you,” Adam said, because in his head he was. “I’m running my hands up your thighs.”

“Fuck, keep going. I love your hands.”

“Okay.” They were pretty ordinary looking hands but who was he to argue? “You’re stroking your cock while you’re watching me.”

“I don’t need to. Seeing you like this is — _shit._ ”

Ronan’s voice was rougher now, a near growl. Adam knew he was touching himself for real down in New York—No, _here_. He was here with Adam.

Adam ran his fingers over his own flushed cock, lightly at first, before giving in and wrapping his fist around it. He said in a lust-wrecked voice, “If you want me that bad, you should do something about it.”

“Yeah? Think you’re ready for it?”

“God yes.”

“Open up then.”

Adam opened his mouth wide.

“Good.” Ronan’s voice was a low hum against his hearing ear; Adam’s body sagged against the sheets. “I’m gonna rub the head against your lip, let you feel it first.”

Adam _could_ feel it, the hot hard weight of it dragging against his open mouth, leaving behind a sticky smear of precum. Saliva pooled at the back of his throat. He panted into the receiver, “Ronan…”

“I got you. Got my hand in your hair, you’re — Fuck, you’re doing so good.”

And Adam went boneless. That was all he wanted, to be good for Ronan. Worthy of Ronan. Seen and sized up and deemed enough.

“I’m gonna feed you my cock now,” Ronan said, “slide it all down your throat. You can take it, right?”

 _I’ll take anything you think I des_ — “Do it.”

Ronan swore again, a creative string of black-painted poetry that had Adam’s cock spurting more precum. He balanced the phone between his ear and shoulder and brought his free hand to his mouth. Slipped two fingers between his open lips and swallowed around them like they weren’t his.

“Fuck, is that — are you—?”

Adam hollowed his cheeks and sucked harder, let the obscene wet sound of it fill up the phone mic. He dragged them against his tongue, pushed them to the back of his throat and held them there. Held _Ronan_ there.

“Jesus, you’re so…”

 _Desperate_ , Adam’s mind supplied. _Dirty. Depraved._

“So much,” Ronan gasped out. “You’re so good, Adam, so fucking good.”

Joy and satisfaction crashed through Adam. He whined around the cock in his mouth, the sound tearing out of him without his control. He was breathing raggedly through his nose, eyes blurry, throat constricting around the intrusion, but none of that mattered. Adam let everything else go, all the stress, all the shame, and focused on Ronan’s words and Ronan’s pleasure and _RonanRonanRonan_.

“I’m close. Shit. Are you — Are you touching yourself?”

His hand sped up around his dick without conscious thought, release building up inside him.

“Want you to come. Fuck, Adam, make yourself come for me.”

Adam’s mind couldn’t process the instruction but his body was one step ahead. He shuddered and cried out as his orgasm wracked through him, a furious shock of ecstasy that left him light-headed and wrung out in its wake.

He pulled his trembling fingers out of his mouth and felt the spit trail down his chin. In his ear, he heard the faint slick sound of a hand jerking cock on the other line.

The other line, because Ronan wasn’t really here.

“You should—” Adam could hardly think “—my face.”

“What?”

“Pull out and come on my face.”

Ronan cursed loudly enough that Adam’s delirious brain worried the neighbors might hear him. He sensed it when Ronan’s orgasm hit him.

Afterwards as he wound down from the sensation, heavy breathing slowing down on both ends of the line, Adam felt doubt begin to creep in. He hadn’t meant to do that. He’d just wanted…he didn’t know what. Reassurance? Closeness? A break from his head?

“That was okay, right?” Ronan asked, and gone was the self-assurance from before. There was a fragile note to his voice that spoke of hesitance. Well, so long as he didn’t think Adam was a crazed sex fiend. Adam’s doubts faded.

“Yeah,” he breathed out. “It was…God. More than okay.”

It was exactly what he’d needed and somehow Ronan had known that. He’d known all the right things to say, exactly how Adam needed it, like the two of them were long-term partners carrying out a familiar dance.

Uncanny.

“You should come up here this week,” Adam said, “once you’re done in New York. If you’re not busy—”

“I’m not.”

“So, you’ll do it?”

“I thought you had finals and shit.”

“Not til the fifth.” He had reading week but that felt like a distant concern right now. Seeing Ronan took prominence.

“All right,” Ronan said, and Adam’s heart stuttered. “Sure, I could leave here Sunday night, crash at Gansey’s.”

And just like that it was settled. Just like that. How easy. Was it supposed to be this easy?

Adam didn’t care. He was still teetering on that dizzy high. It’d be hours before he came down and regained his senses.

“Hey, Adam?”

“Yeah?”

The line went quiet, so quiet that he second-guessed whether he’d heard Ronan at all. But then he said, “Nothing. Just, I’ll see you Monday, right?”

*

The points of stress didn’t stop being points of stress, but they weighed on Adam less heavily over that weekend. Excitement over the coming date with Ronan worked like a balm over all of Adam’s worries.

He had to be honest with Ronan and he _would_ , but perhaps it wouldn’t matter. Ronan knew enough about who Adam was and he hadn’t been put off by any of it so far. Maybe this could work.

He performed on the livestream on Saturday night. He went to his library shift on Sunday. He set camp at the flimsy kitchen table and studied for most of Monday morning and afternoon. In the background, he was counting down minutes the whole time.

Early-evening, Adam put the books away and turned his attention towards getting ready. He showered, shaved, lingered over his meagre wardrobe. What did Ronan like about him, exactly? Which version of Adam Parrish was Ronan Lynch most attracted to?

Stupid question. It was a date with a guy he’d known for months, not a job interview or a private session. Adam grabbed a black turtleneck from the rack and carefully pulled it on.

Ronan hadn’t given any indications of what he was planning tonight. Adam had some ideas, if it came to it, but he suspected that Ronan already had something in mind. He’d been the one so insistent on doing this, after all.

It was both thrilling and terrifying. He didn’t know what to expect, if everything would be different now that they were…a thing. He hesitated to think of Ronan as his boyfriend. He didn’t know the protocol when it came to labeling these matters; none of his hookups had prepared him for this.

Would Ronan want to sleep with him tonight? Was that acceptable first date etiquette? Well, Adam thought wryly, they’d already shot down the rules after the other night’s phone sex. What was one more?

He pulled up outside Gansey’s fancy apartment block fifteen minutes early and waited around in his shitty Ford until another ten minutes had passed. At seven on the dot, Adam was outside Gansey’s door, hand raised to knock.

“Parrish!” Gansey greeted with all the enthusiasm of a friend he wasn’t going on a date with. “What a wonderful surprise.”

Was it? Adam hadn’t told him about the deal with Ronan, but he’d figured Ronan would’ve.

“Sorry to just stop by like this,” he said. “Lynch promised he’d let me take the BMW out for a spin.”

Gansey beamed and ushered him inside. Adam followed him through to the kitchen, listening and nodding along as Gansey filled him in on a weekend’s worth of minutiae. He pulled out a chair while Gansey flapped around. A battered looking journal was already dumped on the seat; Adam set it on the table and then sat down.

“And then Blue called a couple of hours ago,” Gansey declared; his voice did a very funny thing while pronouncing Blue’s name. “A friend of hers is doing a slam poetry performance tonight over in Boston and she wants me to come with her to support them.”

“She asked you on a date?”

“Well, I don’t know if it’s a _date_ per se. It’s all been very last minute. She told me her other friend bailed on her, so now I’m her last resort.”

“She likes you,” Adam said, and Gansey’s face lit up.

“God, I hope so. She’s really something special, don’t you think?”

Adam waited for a break in the conversation before subtly giving the apartment a glance over. Where was Ronan hiding? Was he waiting for Gansey to leave?

“Ronan’s in the shower,” Gansey helpfully supplied. Okay, so maybe Adam wasn’t as subtle as he’d thought.

“Cool.”

“Yep. So…” And now Gansey was giving Adam one of those all-knowing stares that said he’d looked right through him and seen more than he was letting on. “You and Lynch.”

“Yes?”

“I know it’s not my — You know what, I’m just going to come out and ask. Are you two…involved?”

“Oh my god.”

“Seeing each other,” Gansey said. “Dating. Whatever you want to call it.”

“Would it bother you if we were?”

“No! Of course not. I mean, it’s really not my business—”

“Glad that’s established.”

Gansey smiled, chastened. He leaned against the counter as he said, “Look, that came out wrong. All I meant to say was I’m happy for you. Both of you. You’re both terribly important to me, you know that? You deserve to be happy.”

Adam tried to speak. Couldn’t. Tried to meet Gansey’s stare. Couldn’t. All his lies and inadequacies were lodged in his throat and he felt certain that if he looked up now, Gansey would see the truth written on his face.

“Anyway,” Gansey said, deceptively bright, “I’m due to meet Blue in thirty minutes, so I better get heading.”

“Wait,” Adam said, and then regretted it instantly. He held out the journal instead. “You forgot this.”

Gansey rounded the table and took the book from Adam’s outstretched hands, only to frown at the last second. “Ah, not to worry. That one’s Ronan’s.”

Well, damn. “Never would’ve pegged Lynch as the journaling type,” Adam said wryly.

“Oh he’s not, believe me. It’s his sketchbook.”

Adam blinked. He had the dizzying sense of puzzle pieces slotting into place, but he couldn’t say what the picture looked like.

“Never would’ve pegged Lynch as the sketchbooking type either.”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Well — It’s nothing, I suppose,” Gansey backtracked. “Just. Lynch is rather artistically inclined. His whole family is. Or was, sorry.”

It should not have been a revelation. It made sense, in hindsight. It should not have mattered.

Adam felt like he was teetering over a cliff’s edge.

“No,” he said. “He didn’t tell me that.”

“Oh. Well, he’s always been quite private about his art. It’s all very close to his heart. He’s super talented though, you’ll need to ask him to show you some of his work. He had this one series I used to be obsessed with back when we were kids. It was a, what do you call it, like a long-form comic book? His dad would come up with the story and then Ronan would sketch it out. And it was so good! They had this superhero character who could take things out of his dreams, how cool is that?”

“Really cool, man.” Adam’s voice sounded far off to his ears. The picture took startling shape. _N_ _othing about you seems like it should fit together_ _._

He sensed what was coming like a jump scare in a B-movie slasher flick—

“I’m trying to think of his name now. Christ, I can’t remember. Something Warden?”

Like the punchline to a tired joke—

“Greywaren?”

“That’s it!” Gansey grinned. “So he _did_ tell you about that?”

—A joke made at Adam’s expense.

He was the punchline.

Adam laughed. He felt empty of all thoughts, all feelings.

“Must’ve slipped my mind,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 😳 nobody look at me
> 
> i'm on tumblr [here](https://sunset-moons.tumblr.com/) and if anyone wants a sexy mood playlist to go along w this fic, you can find it [here](https://sunset-moons.tumblr.com/post/644952072315437056/) :D


	9. Chapter 9

Ronan was going to tell him.

He had to. The longer he dragged this on, the sleazier he felt. Not being upfront about how much he knew felt too much like taking advantage of the situation and that wasn’t something Ronan could justify, especially not with Adam.

He needed to do it in person though. He’d considered spitting it out on the phone so many times this month, ripping the band-aid clean off, but too much would’ve got lost in translation. So now, new plan: break the news before the date. This way, with Adam here beside him, Ronan could make his intentions clear without having to put them to words.

_You can trust me._

Friday night, Adam’s breath heavy in his ear as Ronan guided him over the edge, he’d felt like maybe Adam already did. That had been as frightening as it was alluring. Who had ever trusted Ronan? Not Declan, who still felt the need to stumble in their father’s shoes. Not Gansey, who was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Not even Ronan, who knew better than anyone what Ronan was capable of, what destruction Ronan might cause if he got too restless.

Adam didn’t see any of that when he looked at Ronan. He just saw Ronan.

But Adam’s trust was a fragile hard-earned gift; how easily it could shatter if he didn’t get this right.

_Adam’s voice, strangely hesitant, “You mean that?”_

Yes, face to face was better. Ronan would show he could be trusted. He’d show that this was real.

That was why, as Monday night rolled around, Ronan hauled ass to the bathroom and locked the door. He’d go out there once Gansey was gone and not a moment sooner. But Gansey was Gansey, and so ten minutes of waiting turned into thirty.

Jesus, what was taking so long? Didn’t Gansey have his own date to get to? Was there any need to co-opt Ronan’s too?

The front door opened and shut eventually. Ronan waited another minute, took a deep breath and then slipped into the spare room. He shrugged on his leather jacket, picked up the little snake plant he’d got for Adam and then headed into the fray.

Adam was sitting at the dining table with his back turned the other way. Ronan paused in the doorway and took him in. He wore all-black just like Ronan (had he done that _for_ Ronan?) and the lack of color looked good on him, contrasting with his fair hair and rendering him sexier and sharper against the muted tones of Gansey’s kitchen.

There was an elegance to the way he held himself, straight-backed and head tilted forwards, hands poised in his lap. Like a portrait model. Ronan wished to sketch him, although he wasn’t sure he could ever do him justice. Too many layers, too much complexity. Adam was a study in contradictions. He was so many things all at once. You had to look and keep on looking to capture each of the brush strokes; Ronan had been looking for months.

Ronan drummed his fingers against the door to announce his presence. Adam’s head turned towards him. There was a second’s lag where Ronan could see nothing but that gaunt lovely face, could think nothing except _I can want this, I get to have this_ , and then his mind caught up to the reality of what lay before him. The eerie blankness in Adam’s eyes.

“How long have you known?” Adam asked.

There was the other shoe dropping.

When Ronan was sixteen years old, he’d answered the front door of his family home with no awareness of the ticking bomb on the other side. He hadn’t been prepared for the worst back then. He’d still lived in a world where tragedy belonged to movies and the worst was someone else’s problem.

When Ronan was seventeen years old, he’d woken up in a hospital bed with fresh bandages on his wrists. Saved, they said. Debatable, he thought. The worst was his problem now and if he couldn’t escape it, he’d have to get better at predicting it.

When Ronan was nineteen years old, he’d come to hungover on Kavinsky’s couch with K out cold on the floor beside him. It hadn’t been a shock so much as a disturbance; here was the inevitable end to the story, and here was Ronan at the center of the storm once again. Expect the worst and the worst will come.

Those words coming from Adam’s mouth were not the worst thing Ronan had been met with. They were not close to being the worst thing. And because Ronan _knew_ the worst, was always anticipating the worst, he barely felt the shock-waves this time at all.

But that did not mean he wanted it.

He saw no use playing dumb or beating around the bush. He said, “That night in the car.”

“When we kissed?”

Ronan shook his head.

Adam’s face remained passive, but Ronan noticed when a glimmer of understanding sneaked through the mask. “The driving lesson.”

“You’ve got that scar on your palm,” he explained. “Same place. Wasn’t hard to put together.”

Surprise flickered across Adam’s face. He hadn’t been expecting that. Maybe he’d assumed the scar wasn’t noticeable at all, that no one would ever think to look that closely. As if Ronan, dreamer that he was, could ever be faced with a marvel like Adam and not want to catalogue every detail.

“So you’ve known about this for two months,” Adam said, sharp and to-the-point like a lawyer laying out facts for the jury, “and you didn’t think to say something?”

“I was going to.”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

Adam scoffed. “That’s convenient.”

This was not how it was supposed to go. It was not how Ronan wanted it at all.

Ronan set Adam’s plant down on the worktop and strode over to the fridge. He grabbed a root beer, less for thirst and more for distraction, and waved it in Adam’s direction. “You want one?”

Adam said nothing but the judgemental tilt to his brow spoke for him. Ronan knocked the door shut, grabbed the bottle opener and flicked off the cap. He leaned against the counter as he guzzled half his drink in one, watching Adam’s face for some kind of sign. He’d had a plan and Adam had shot it to hell, and now Ronan didn’t know where to start.

Adam didn’t give him the chance to. “You know the best part? I’ve been beating myself up about this all month. I figured I owed it to you to tell you about those videos — you know, because you’re always so upright and honest.”

“I didn’t lie to you,” Ronan said on instinct.

“You didn’t tell the truth either. Lying by omission is still lying.”

“So that’s what you’re pissed about? Because I didn’t confront you with all that shit straight away?”

“I can be pissed about more than one thing,” Adam snapped.

And _there_ it was. Adam didn’t look so detached anymore, was no longer doing his damn best mannequin performance. That was real rage buried under layers of forced apathy, and the destructive force at the back of Ronan’s head reveled in teasing it out. If this was going to be a fight, Ronan wanted a real fight, no holds barred.

“Okay, so say it then,” Ronan challenged. “Say what you’re pissed about and get it over with.”

Adam crossed his arms and did not speak.

“Is it the money?” Ronan said. “Because I gave you money?”

Adam still did not speak, but his grip on his own forearm tightened.

“Fuck, man, half the planet jacks it to porn. At least I paid for mine.”

“It’s not about the money.” But Adam said this through gritted teeth, like it cost him to spit the words out.

“Well if it’s not the money, what is it?”

“Jesus, Lynch. What do you think it is? We’ve been over this already! I don’t wear that mask for the hell of it. I wear it so everything that’s on that website stays private. _Separate_.”

“You said you were going to tell me anyway,” Ronan pointed out.

“Yeah, tell you. Not show you. Those aren’t the same thing.”

“Sounds like the same damn thing to me.”

“God,” Adam groaned. “I can’t have this conversation with you if you’re going to act like this.”

“Act like what? Like it’s simpler than you’re making it out to be? It is.” Ronan set down his root beer bottle. “I don’t care, okay? I don’t care about your secret identity. I don’t care about any of the weird fucked up shit you do. You’re still — You’re the same bastard you always were. And I should’ve told you about the Greywaren thing, but I didn’t. I’m a fucking idiot. Case closed.”

Adam said nothing but his brows furrowed like he was turning these words over in his mind. Did he recognize them from the chat all those months ago, before everything got complicated? Did he understand how honest Ronan was being with him now, how honest Ronan had been right from the start?

“It doesn’t matter, really,” he said eventually, and there was Ronan’s answer. “Even if you’d told me, it wouldn’t have mattered. This never would’ve worked.”

Ronan flinched. Expecting the worst didn’t stop it from hurting.

He wanted to plead his case and make Adam listen, but he was himself at all hours of the day and so what came out was, “Why the fuck not?”

“Why do you think?” Adam pushed his chair back and stood up. “You weren’t interested in me until you found out I was him.”

Those words sliced right through the skin and hollowed out a space in Ronan’s heart. It was the truth distorted, turned ugly through the funhouse mirror. The worst possible take on the evidence laid out before them, because Adam was a whip-smart asshole and he’d make a damn good lawyer one day.

“Jesus Christ, Parrish. What are you even saying? You and Alex the same fucking person.”

“No, Alex isn’t real. None of it was real, do you get that? I made him up so people like you would keep coming back every week.”

 _People like you_. Adam didn’t have to say what he meant by that. The implications were clear: lonely rich losers with nothing better to do.

But that wasn’t all there was to it. There had always been more to it. Ronan’s connection with Adam online had been as real as the connection in person, and Adam knew that. He _had_ to know that.

“Bullshit,” Ronan said.

“It’s really not.” Adam stepped towards the door like he was done with this conversation. Done with Ronan. “Sorry to disappoint. I know you’ve got a difficult relationship with the truth.”

Hurt and shame and disappointment crashed through Ronan and then coalesced into rage the way they always did.

He could’ve dulled down his words; he chose not to. He watched Adam retreat and then he yelled out, “You really gonna pull the moral high ground on me like you’re not the one who’s been lying about everything this whole time? Where the fuck do _you_ get off, Adam?”

“I lied to keep myself safe,” Adam shot back. “I don’t expect you to get this, but—”

“I’m not talking about the camboy shit. I’m talking about all the other shit. You didn’t lie to Gansey to keep yourself safe.”

Adam paused, and in that second’s stillness Ronan wished he could be someone else. A softer, kinder, better version of himself, like the one Adam had once picked out. But he couldn’t change tracks now. There was nothing else for it but to dig his heels in deeper.

“I—” Adam stopped. Frowned. “I don’t owe you anything.”

“What about Gansey? What do you owe him?” Ronan countered. “I mean, fuck, is anything you told him true? You lied about where you’re from. You lied about how much money you’ve got. You’re clearly lying about your Brady Bunch family back home too. What else, Adam? How’d you get the scar on your hand?”

“Why would I lie about a stupid scar on my hand?”

“Why wouldn’t you? You lied about your ear.”

Adam’s face paled.

Screw it, Ronan thought. No turning back now. “You told Gansey you fell off a swing when you were twelve. That’s not what you told me. Do you just — Can you just not help yourself? Is it patho-fucking-logical?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Adam said, “so you should shut up while you’re ahead.”

“What, so it was fine to call me out on my bullshit but I can’t do the same with you?”

“It’s not the—”

“It’s fucked up. Lying about yourself like this, it’s really fucked up.”

“I didn’t—”

“And you say the Alex stuff isn’t real, but what is? I don’t know shit about you, Adam! It’s like you want it that way!”

“That’s not…”Adam shook his head. “You don’t get it. You’ve never had to.”

Because Adam had never given him the chance to. Because he’d never really trusted Ronan, no matter how much Ronan had deluded himself into thinking he did.

“I might’ve messed up with Greywaren but at least I told you about all my shit,” Ronan snarled. “I’ve never pretended to be someone I’m not just ‘cause I hate the face I got stuck with.”

He could tell the grenade had struck by the dreadful silence that sprung up in its wake. Smoke clouds, bodies falling, music cut.

Ronan stared at Adam and Adam stared at a point past Ronan’s head. He was blank-eyed like he’d been when this all began. Haunted. Detached. _Adam Parrish has left the building, please leave a message—_

It was so much worse than Adam hitting back. Ronan wished that Adam would hit back.

But it seemed the war was over and Ronan had won, gold fucking medal for him. He felt deflated rather than absolved.

When Adam finally looked Ronan in the eye, the rage was gone and grim resignation lay in its place. “If that’s what you think of me,” he said, “then what are you really here for?”

He didn’t give Ronan the chance to answer. He turned around and left.

Ronan listened to the front door slamming shut before grabbing his root beer bottle and throwing it across the room. It smashed against the wall and left a nasty brown stain in its wake. Well, he thought, that was fucking appropriate, wasn’t it?

When Ronan was nineteen years old, he’d checked himself into a rehabilitation center with the vague idea of turning his life around. You could only live through the worst so many times before human instinct propelled you to say enough.

Most of the therapy-feelings bullshit hadn’t stuck. Ronan had moved back home despite all the warnings about home being a trigger. He’d given up on setting ‘attainable goals for the future.’ He’d stopped returning his sponsor’s calls.

One piece of advice had stayed with him though: sometimes the worst happens because you invite it. Sometimes you’re the problem, and holding yourself accountable is the only route through the muck.

Ronan watched the root beer trickled down the wall. Said to himself, “You’re the problem.”

It didn’t make him feel any better. Taking ownership of his faults might’ve been a big step forward, but it wouldn’t bring back what he’d just lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't shoot me i'm just the messenger 😬
> 
> i'm on tumblr at [sunset-moons](https://sunset-moons.tumblr.com/) if you wanna yell about these dumb boys with me. or yell at me. whatever you prefer.


End file.
